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In Defense Of The “Sad Book” by Jenn Bishop
I can still remember its place on the shelf in my elementary school library. Mrs. Littlejohn, the librarian, would give us time at the end of each session to browse and check out books. I didn’t check it out every time—I was never a big re-reader as a child or an adult—but I always went back to it on the shelf, like it was a friend that I needed to visit.
The book that kept drawing me back was Lois Lowry’s A Summer To Die, her first novel.
If you’re not familiar with it, let me give you a brief synopsis. A Summer To Die is the kind of book that would likely be called “quiet” now. It’s a contemporary story told from the point-of-view of Meg, younger sister to the beautiful Molly. The two girls are uprooted from their home and whisked away to the countryside so their professor father can focus on his book. Meg and Molly aren’t getting along particularly well when Molly’s nosebleeds begin, and she is later diagnosed with leukemia.
I know what you’re thinking: it sounds like a “sad book.” I would be lying to say that when I revisited it as an adult a few years ago, it didn’t bring tears to my eyes. It does, just as effectively today as it did for ten-year-old me. But to reduce it to a “sad book” is to somehow shortchange it, or limit its audience. The thing is, the passage I most recall returning to during my browsing time at the library was not the saddest moment in the book, but the most hopeful one.
Over the summer, Meg grows close with Ben and Maria, who come to stay in the neighbor’s house and are expecting a baby. They’ve decided on a home birth and ask Meg, who’s become quite a good photographer, to take pictures of the birth. It’s that chapter, when Meg is called over for the birth, that I kept returning to as a young reader. Amidst all of the sadness with Molly was a peek into one of life’s most profound experiences.
The thing about middle grade “sad books” is that they’re never all sad. There are so many moments of hope and joy and humor, which speak to the broader experience of life. If there’s one thing I learned from reading A Summer To Die at a young age, it was that the human experience contained terrifying and sad times . . . but also beautiful ones.
Young readers need, crave, safe places to experience intense subject matter, and for a variety of reasons. I know this to be true because I’ve talked with them, so many kids and teens who have passed through the libraries I’ve worked in trying to figure out what to read next. I know which books and sections of the library get perused surreptitiously, and which paperbacks need to be replaced from so much use. Hint: they’re not the books that pretend the world is all puppies and rainbows.
So many readers are in search of stories that provide intense emotional experiences. (Isn’t that why so many teens and adults are drawn to romance, after all?) They’re looking for books that confirm their own life experiences, or that can help them make sense of something a friend is going through. Mirrors.
And then there are the kids like me, growing up in a small town in Central Massachusetts, where it seemed like nothing interesting ever happened. Kids who crave windows into something bigger than their own life like you wouldn’t believe.
Of course I was drawn to books where stuff actually happened, books that made me feel something, whether it was love or fear or the cozy company of friendship. Books with entrepreneurial babysitters. Books in which ventriloquist dummies came to life. Books about an orphan with carroty hair who’s convinced nobody could ever love her.
And yes, “sad books” too.
A former youth services and teen librarian, Jenn Bishop once read over 300 books a year as a member of the ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee, so yeah, she’s a little bit nerdy. Along with her husband and cat, Jenn lives just outside of Boston. The Distance To Home, her debut middle grade novel, has been named a Junior Library Guild selection and could be called a “sad book.” The Distance To Home will come out on June 28, 2016, with Alfred A. Knopf / Random House. You can find Jenn online at www.jennbishop.com, and on Twitter as @buffalojenn.
Nerdy Book Club 
Thank you so much for this service. The emails prompt me to go to the website now and then, but because they always come from “CBethM” I thought for a while that she was a very prolific poster! Haha! Today’s “new post” really struck a chord with me, and I actually ventured onto the website to comment!
Warm regards (to whoever it is who receives this! I hope it’s a real person! Ah, the endless mysteries of the internet!)
Esther Peacock
I’m CBethM – the techie who makes sure all of our guest posts are up on the site each day. I do write occasionally, but when I do, I give myself a byline in the title like I do with everyone else. 🙂
I wondered the same thing Esther247!
I really enjoyed this post, thank you! Yes, many “addicted readers” seek out intense emotional experiences with books (Not having read it yet myself, I couldn’t resist ordering a copy of the one you review here!) Not everyone does…. but then they are probably not members of the Nerdy Book Club either! Hahaha! Your post really chimed with me.
A great post – and I would love the names of more ‘sad’ books – every now and then a borrower will ask for a sad book. I offer ‘Ways to live forever’ Sally Nichols , and of course ‘The fault in our stars’ John Green (though that is marked Gd 7, 12/13 yr olds because of the sex scene), ‘The boy in the striped pyjamas’ John Boyne. ‘Bridge to Terebithia’ Katherine Paterson. ‘Waiting for Anya’ Michael Morpurgo. Any other thoughts?
For middle grade: Arnold’s Far From Fair, Springstubb’s Every Single Second, Appelt’s Maybe a Fox, Wymer’s Soar, Messner’s The Seventh Wish, Anderson’s Ms. Bixby’s Last Day, Penney’s Eleven and Holding, Galante’s The World from Uo Here, Baskin’s Nine, Ten, Lane’s The Worst Best Thing, LeGrand’s Some Kind of Happiness, Steveson’s Swing Sideways, and Donwerth-Chikamatsu’s Somewhere Among. That’s just to start. Plenty of sad books out there. Fun fact: I have TWO first editions of ASummer to Die in my school library.
Here are more great middle grade books that will make you grab a tissue.
See You at Harry’s by Jo Knowles
The Honest Truth by Dan Ganeinhart
Mick Harte was Here by Barbara Park
Some other sad books that I’ve really enjoyed over the years include Sharon Creech’s Walk Two Moons, Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (distinctly remember sobbing while finishing this one), Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes, The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin, Counting Thyme by Melanie Conklin, Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban, The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price by Jennifer Maschari.
I’d forgotten about A Summer To Die. I definitely read it more than once as a girl. I love sad books. And also I thought I wanted to be a pediatric oncologist.
I’ll definitely look for this book. I appreciate honest, realistic and hopeful stories like this. Read Walk Two Moons, and Paper Wishes. Will check out the rest in your comment, too, Jenn. Thanks for letting us know about A Summer to Die!
I just love your article. It reminded me that this is the message of WHY we must lead kids to books and cultivate readers. Our students miss out on a support in their lives if we don’t! Thank you!
Wow! What simple, elegant wisdom – “Young readers need, crave, safe places to experience intense subject matter …” Thank you, Jenn. Have you read MICK HARTE WAS HERE by Barbara Park. I adore that book for the juxtaposition of Park’s signature humor and the sadness of the subject matter.
Ooh. That one sounds so familiar, but I think I remember it from my librarian days, not from having actually read it. Will have to check it out!
This is one I missed as a girl but read on recommendation a few years ago. Lovely.
Great post, Jenn Bishop!
I’d love to add a few thoughts. Some of our young readers need non-fiction to make them love reading. Some of our young readers need action and humor and perhaps even a bit of irreverence. Some of them need graphic novels. Some of them need to read about something that scares the bejeebers out of them. Some of them need a story about feelings… (and sad counts.)
This is called diversity. It’s about the diversity of human beings that reaches beyond race and skin color and lives in the land of all of us, and in this case, children or young adults.
Digging deeper, this is about how children process the world. Some children process through feelings and some through thought. Some children need to read about darkness in fantasy so they can process how the world works in a safe place. For example, Darren Shan’s books give me nightmares but they keep some children from having nightmares.
Some people think teaching children to read is the same as teaching them to think. We need to recognize that for some readers teaching children to read is teaching them to feel. We need both kinds of people in the world and luckily for all of us, they are split about 50/50 in the population.
Children who are naturally wired to pick up on the emotion in their environment need to be validated and need to see the feelings in a story. That’s how they “blow out their carburetor.”
Every library needs books with deep feelings. Kate Hannigan’ TRUE (Sort of), Roseanne Parry’s HEART OF A SHEPHERD, Lurlene McDaniel, BLACK BEAUTY, MS. BIXBY’S LAS DAY, WHEN FRiENDSHIP FOLLOWED ME HOME, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS and so many more are such important parts of every collection.
We are in the business of matching unique children to unique books. It’s not one size fits all…. and that’s the magic in what we do.
You make such great points, Barb! Especially about some kids reading to think and others to feel. I’m realizing as an adult that while my husband and I are both big readers, he is drawn more to the “thinking” books. (Perhaps given that he is a physicist, this should not surprise me.) Very true how different kids will be drawn to different books. What I remember, too, from my own childhood, was how one reader can also read widely, and to not underestimate a kid’s interests or limit it. I read stuff for my reading level but also read down for familiar books whose worlds I loved even though they were easy to read.
I love(d) this book then and now. Yes, it’s sad but it’s so much about coming into yourself and finding support in that journey from a community. Nutmeg.
Actually all the old Lois Lowry’s are gems. Not to take anything away from her later books (e.g., the Giver, Goonie Bird) but the older stuff is wonderful too. Taking Care of Terrific is another splendid book. And Autumn Street is a gem. And Caroline was a good friend to me.