Parkland: Birth of a Movement

Something changed with Parkland. When Nicolas Cruz shot seventeen students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on 14th February 2018, the story was tragic and familiar. Yet the eighth school shooting that year made history for another reason.

Days afterwards, young, traumatised survivors were galvanising their grief and outrage into action. Social media blazed with calls for gun control, and America listened. In just a few weeks, they organised national school walkouts, TV debates with senators and a march on Washington.

Dave Cullen had never seen this before. As the author of the definitive book on Columbine, he’d spent twenty years following the epidemic. This book will focus on the aftermath - the extraordinary #NeverAgain campaign that has seized the country with hope.

He will take the reader inside the school in the days before the shooting, where students anticipate exam results and rehearse the school play. He will recreate the six minutes it took for their world to shatter. And he’ll follow, with exclusive access, the self-described ‘misfits’ who became the core of the campaign movement.

From media stars like Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg and Cameron Kasky to backstage organiser Jackie Corin and rulebreaker Alfonso Calderon, their journeys, their personalities are at the heart of this book. Why this time? Why these kids? And will it last? PARKLAND will take you to the hold-your-breath moment when change might come for good.