by Alma Fullerton
Published by Harper Tempest
ISBN: 978-0-06-077851-4
$15.99 131 pgs. FIC POP FUL
A touching account of a young man's struggle with the attempted suicide of his mother and the decisions he has to face in the following months. Fullerton doesn't actually describe what happens until page 122, so you can accurately imagine the confusion and loneliness (apparent through journal entries written as free verse) that the young man experiences as his father spirals into a deep depression, his best friend Jack becomes a substance abusing monster, and a new girl Alissa tries to enter his life. His personal torture is over when he makes that life and death decision that nobody should have to make about their own parent.
Recommended grades 9th-12th
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Black box by Julie Schumacher
Publisher: Delacorte Press © 2008 ISBN (library bind): 978-0-385-73542-1 Price: $15.99 #pages: 168 Call number: F SCH
Genre: Realistic fiction
Annotation:
“I understood unhappiness when it came attached to something…But Dora’s unhappiness—or whatever it was—seemed to exist independently on its own. I pictured stunted, faceless creatures manufacturing it in a cave somewhere, like a toxic gas.” (Black box, p.59)
Elena’s big sister Dora is depressed. As her condition worsens, Dora eventually attempts suicide and ends up being hospitalized. As the “steady Eddie” of the family, Elena shoulders the burden of helping her sister and trying to support her very distracted parents as well. While her parents have had the wisdom to set Elena up with a therapist, she receives immediate help from a neighbor boy, Jimmy, whom she knows only slightly. Elena slowly builds her trust of the therapist, but comes to rely more and more on her friendship with Jimmy as the family situation and Dora’s condition spiral out of her control. Schumacher has captured the jerky, quirky writing style of many young adolescents in her moving account of a teenager’s descent into mental illness and its toll on her family. Chapters are rarely longer than three or four pages, but have a strong, forward narrative line that makes Black box not only emotionally affecting, but also compelling.
Recommended grade levels: 7-12
Genre: Realistic fiction
Annotation:
“I understood unhappiness when it came attached to something…But Dora’s unhappiness—or whatever it was—seemed to exist independently on its own. I pictured stunted, faceless creatures manufacturing it in a cave somewhere, like a toxic gas.” (Black box, p.59)
Elena’s big sister Dora is depressed. As her condition worsens, Dora eventually attempts suicide and ends up being hospitalized. As the “steady Eddie” of the family, Elena shoulders the burden of helping her sister and trying to support her very distracted parents as well. While her parents have had the wisdom to set Elena up with a therapist, she receives immediate help from a neighbor boy, Jimmy, whom she knows only slightly. Elena slowly builds her trust of the therapist, but comes to rely more and more on her friendship with Jimmy as the family situation and Dora’s condition spiral out of her control. Schumacher has captured the jerky, quirky writing style of many young adolescents in her moving account of a teenager’s descent into mental illness and its toll on her family. Chapters are rarely longer than three or four pages, but have a strong, forward narrative line that makes Black box not only emotionally affecting, but also compelling.
Recommended grade levels: 7-12
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