Some kids have that life where they ride bikes, eat meatloaf for dinner, and play street hockey after school. They have parents who know how to put the pieces together for a good, normal life. Some other kids don't have that life. They have the life where their parents have screaming matches instead of conversations, and where no one hears them when they ask for a bike, and the life where divorce breaks their lives apart.
This is the story of Benny's life and he didn't get the meatloaf and the street hockey. This is a tough book to read and he has a tough life to live. It's wonderful to have stories that give us friends in books and places where we can escape to, but we need mirrors too sometimes. We need a book to say, "Yes, I know what it's like to live at your house. I know what it's like to feel like no one is watching over you and for sure, no one is caring." This is the second kind of book - the one that mirrors the ugly and the painful and the dark that can live in the house of a kid.
It takes courage to share that other life with a friend.... and it takes tremendous courage to share that other life with thousands of young readers who might open the book and discover your truth. But gang, this is the book so many kids need. They need it when they are ten years old not when they are seventeen. They need a hand reaching to them and a heart that is understanding how hard it is just to make it through one more day. So darn hard.
We owe Ethan Long a standing ovation for writing this gritty, painful, hopeful, story that takes you to the rock bottom and then shows you the path onward and upward. That's what a day can become. That's where you discover you are going to make it and you can create a great life for you. Stories change lives. Stories save lives. My bet is this will be one of them.
Recommended by: Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com
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An award-winning children’s book creator grapples with the darker undercurrents of his childhood in this poignant and honest illustrated memoir, for readers of Free Lunch and The List of Things That Will Not Change.
Benny's life is slowly unraveling. His parents are newly divorced, his mom chooses to move away, and Benny and his brother and sister are left with their chain-smoking dad, who has just been diagnosed with lung cancer. Benny is lonely, anxious, and very angry. He can't sleep at night and spends his days trying to survive fifth grade.
Writing from a personal place, award-winning creator Ethan Long sheds light on the challenges of growing up amidst family turmoil in this thought-provoking, bighearted story that brims with hope. ---from the publisher
288 pages 978-0316333122 Ages 9-13
Keywords: memoir, dysfunctional family, humor, growing up, divorce, cancer, dealing with anxiety, loneliness, anger, smoking, lung cancer, death and dying, 9 year old, 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, 13 year old, boys' issues
