I have been doing my best these past few weeks to do as much of my schoolwork and reading before the morning that they’re due, but over the weekend I started feeling the effects of an oncoming cold. This cold has since manifested and done it’s best to hinder me, but has not achieved victory yet. However, this cold and a variety of other factors kept me up very late Sunday night trying to finish the readings and work that would be discussed in Monday’s class. I had work the next morning at 10, and class at 4:30, and I ended up asleep around 4 or 5 in the morning. Needless to say, after I got home from class I was exhausted.

Regardless, I knew that I needed to start on the work for the next day’s class, and so I picked up this week’s novel Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate, and started reading. I had been told last week that it was a mystery and also gripping. I wouldn’t really consider it a mystery, but it certainly was gripping and I finished it in one sitting. Not only was it an easy read, I found myself connecting with and relating to the main character, a boy named Jackson, in the story because a lot of the elements talked about in his life were familiar to me. “There, but for the grace of God, go I” is a quote that comes to mind when I think about Jackson’s life so far, and looking back at mine.

The summer before 5th grade my family packed everything we owned and move to Canada. Dad had accepted a pastor position at a church in Pickering, Ontario, and we moved into the basement of one of the church families. We only stayed there for a year or two I believe, but it was a one bedroom set-up, and me and my two brothers slept in the “living room” connected to the kitchen. After that we moved to a townhouse, and then the church split. My dad, the other pastor, and a lot of our friends left the church.

We could only stay in our new house because one of the church members had bought it for us, and we paid them instead of the bank. The next few years I remember that most of the gifts given at Christmas were donated, and often things that we needed like good winter coats, boots, snowpants, and hockey equipment. I remember never going hungry, but a lot of extra room in the cupboards. I remember my mom bringing an unmarked envelope in from the mailbox. I didn’t see any names on it, but I did see the wad of cash that she pulled out from it, and I saw the relief in her soul as she gave thanks to God in the Kitchen.

But most of all, I remember how my parents made sure that those years were some of the best that I’ve had.

The relentless optimism, cheerfulness, and smiles from Jackson’s parents were familiar to me. The fact that he still had a relatively normal life in school and the neighborhood was familiar to me. Buying only the necessities for the family dog was familiar to me, as we did the same with our dog, Buddy. His knowledge of what was really going on, as well as his desire to be told the truth was familiar to me. While I never really had an imaginary friend, and we weren’t ever homeless (one could argue that moving to another country and spending a few days in the car can be called “living in your car”, but it’s not quite the same), it was familiar to me, because but for the grace of God, we would have been.

I enjoyed this book and think that it is important for a number of reasons. The first is that it validates the feelings of children who are going through this. You are often prone to feeling alone in a situation like this, hence Jackson’s need for his imaginary friend. This book shows a child like Jackson that they aren’t alone. It also allows children who are not in situations like this to see what it can be like. In many different stories there are children who are going through situations like Jackson’s but we rarely see their perspective. Instead we get the outsider’s perspective: the dirty hand-me-down clothes, lack of a school lunch, and an ever-working parent.

While it is important that these children are included, and can be used to teach compassion to children, Crenshaw is far more effective.

In my opinion, the other reading for this week, Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena and Christian Robinson is an example of a text that allows the reader to interact with people who are in a rough situation. I did not find it as powerful as Crenshaw, but I think that’s because Last Stop is an outside look. While still powerful, useful, and a very good book, its effects are slightly different. This book could be used to start a broad conversation that ends with the class reading Crenshaw. I think that would be a powerful unit for a lot of the students in a class.

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