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| Perma-Bound from Publisher's Hardcover ©2020 | -- |
| Publisher's Hardcover ©2020 | -- |
Families. Juvenile fiction.
Suicide. Juvenile fiction.
Teenagers. Juvenile fiction.
Family life. Fiction.
Suicide. Fiction.
Teenagers. Fiction.
Gr 7 Up-Jomon wants to end it all. At 15, he has won a school competition and should be on cloud nine but instead, he ends up vandalizing a local business. A survivor of abuse at the hands of his father, he would rather stay in jail than give the officers his father's name. Locked in a cell, he doesn't feel like he has anything to live for anymore. Then he is visited by ghostly grandfathers. He argues that suicide is a way out of his pain, but quickly learns he will have to go through generations of men in his family to do so. This heartwrenching story highlights the effects of generations of mental illness and depression in one family. Grandfathers and great-grandfathers return to share their stories in hopes of imparting light on Jomon's situation. Set against the beautiful landscape of Guyana and alternating between Jomon's narrative and that of a prehistoric giant sloth, readers will learn how depression and loneliness affect families and can lead to regret. This novel highlights mental health issues that are sadly overlooked in society. Like the leak in the wall of Guyana's national museum, "Covering up a problem only makes it worse." VERDICT This short yet impactful story is a great way to spark a conversation. Recommended for middle and high school readers and anyone who wants to learn about suicide prevention.Cicely Lewis, Meadowcreek H.S., Norcross, GA
School Library Journal (Sun Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2020)
The Guyana night breeze, fresh from the ocean and rich from the jungle, slips into the exhibit hall through the gaps in the plastic sheeting. It inches around -- exploring, discovering new territory, taking up new space.
It winds its way around Gather's tree-trunk legs, then swirls over her strong belly and shoulders. It breathes a thousand scents into her nostrils. A thousand tastes dance on her tongue.
It whispers in her ears, "Come out!"
Gather smells and tastes and hears.
And wakes up.
Jomon feels a flutter of hope in his chest. There is a way out, after all.
He looks around the cell for an escape route.
There is a place where the bars in the door meet the bars in the wall. A crossbar, a place to tie something. He has no rope, but his school uniform shirt might do, especially if he tears it and twists it so it is like a rope. He could also, maybe, use his trousers, but he doesn't want to be found in just his underwear.
Jomon takes off his shirt. He bites into the threads that hold the hem together, then rips the shirt right up the back.
Now he has something he can use.
"It won't be that easy," says a voice.
Jomon is startled. He looks in the direction of the voice.
It is coming from a boy, about his age, sitting in the cell across the hall from him.
Excerpted from The Greats by Deborah Ellis
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
With the unexpected help of a giant prehistoric sloth, ghostly grandfathers return to help a suicidal teenager. Winning a national high-school geography competition should be the high point of Jomon's life. So why does he find himself running through the streets of Georgetown, Guyana, later that same night -- so angry and desperate? Why does he heave his hard-won medal through the front window of a liquor store? Why does a teenaged boy decide life is not worth living? Arrested by police and detained in a jail cell, Jomon is jolted out of his suicidal thoughts by the sudden appearance of another teenaged boy -- who claims to be his great-great-grandfather ... Meanwhile, across town, the pride of Guyana, the life-sized exhibit of a giant prehistoric sloth named Gather, disappears overnight from the Guyana National Museum. While museum officials argue over who is responsible for the disappearance and who is in charge of getting the sloth back, only Mrs. Simson, a museum cleaner, seems to understand what needs to be done. And so begins a strange and marvelous journey, as Jomon is sentenced to a youth detention facility, and a succession of his dead grandfathers appears, each one of them having died by suicide. As the grandfathers argue among themselves and blame each other for their own fates, they keep a watch out for Jomon, to try to make sure he does not continue their family tradition. In this short, fable-like story, Deborah Ellis comes at the timely and difficult issue of child suicide with restraint, compassion, and freshness, as the grandfathers overcome their own fraught histories to help their grandson, who in the end is aided by the appearance of a wondrous giant rodent, busy enjoying her own return to earthly existence.