sick kids

Sunshine

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by Jarrett J. Korsoczka
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are sick kids and talk of death. It’s in the Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

In the companion to Hey Kiddo, Krosoczka depicts his experiences with Camp Sunshine, a place for sick kids – many of them terminally ill – and their families to go to get away from hospitals and being sick. Krosoczka volunteered for a week when he was 16, and he didn’t know what to expect when he first got there but ended up meeting incredible people and having his life changed for the better.

It was a touching and sweet graphic novel. I loved how Krosoczka depicted not only the other kids volunteering but also the kids and their families. He hits the highlights of the week he volunteered, and followed some of the relationships he kept afterward. It’s a good reminder that getting outside yourself and volunteering to help others is important. And it’s a good book.

Breathing Room

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by Marsha Hayles
First sentence: “Father jerked the car to the side of the road and stopped.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are some unsettling moments and a couple of characters die. The book would be in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore if we had it.

I know I’m not supposed to start a post like this, but: I wasn’t terribly thrilled about reading a book about a girl with tuberculosis in the 1940s. The main character, Evvy, is shipped off to a sanatorium because she has TB and her family hopes she can be cured. And it was surprisingly engaging and actually kind of gripping. I’ve not read many sick kids books (tending toward the cancer end of them), but I was fascinated not only by the treatments used in the 1940s, but just the general mood of the book. Evvy wanted to get better, and her body was fighting her, so there was that conflict. There was a camaraderie between the girls in the ward, but they were sick, so things that were outside of their control constantly interfered in their lives. It made for a very good story.

I was also fascinated by the historical pictures that the author put at the beginning of every chapter, as well as the small details she included in the book. It wasn’t anything that slowed the story down, but it added an extra layer to the story that I didn’t expect.

It really was a good read, and one I’m glad I did.