The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case

I am 17 years old and almost every page of that book brought me to tears. How anyone even a child could commit such a murder is beyond me. In the beginning of the book the Author recounts all the killings throughout Europes history that were committed by Children and I never thought such things were possible. That book made me want to become a Lawyer so that I could put people like that away. When you are 10 years old you know what your doing you just act innocent and pretend you dont-believe me I know. The last thing I could find on the killers was an article in 1999 about how they had an "unfair" trial because it was public and if they are released they will be given new names,new identities,new social security numbers, and so on, in my opinion that is WRONG. It's wrong to the family of James Bulgar and it's wrong to the people of Europe...

In Australia, this book was tiled "The Sleep Of Reason," and yes, that is what reason did on the fateful afternoon of 12 February 1993 - it slept, and it slept very soundly indeed, leaving us profoundly disturbed and scratching our heads and asking the perennial "Why? questions that can never be answered. Are, or were these boys evil? Nobody can answer that for sure. Surely a child of 10 knows that when you throw a brick at someone and it hits them, it will hurt. Surely they knew that when you beat someone, blood will be shed. And surely they must realise that when you attack someone and cause them to sustain the grievous injuries sustained by little James Bulger, a likely outcome is death? So, my personal analysis leads me to the conclusion of evil, but that fact is really only for the sociologists and Sigmund Freuds among us to debate.Totally unbiased, this is reporting at its highest level. Smith describes the atmosphere in which the offenders were bred, their lives before they committed the crime, and the fatal cynergism between them which resulted in a brutal death for a 3 year old boy and a lifetime of grief for his anguished parents.

This is one of the saddest books I have ever read.I don't know of anyone who could read it and not cry for poor little Jamie and his family.I hope the murderers themselves get all the help they need,they are after all only children.A very graphic account of a very sad event.Keep your tissues handy.

Excellent and thorough book about the terrible tragedy in England. Not to be missed for the true crime buff. The boys who killed were children and the story is basically unbelieveable, but it DID happen and will probably happen again given the same circumstances of the parents lifestyles and "two of a kind" together at the right (wrong) time and the right (wrong) place.