Sunshine Book Review

 Hello everyone (yes spoilers),

I recently read a very interesting book about Jarrett J Krosoczka, a popular children’s author (he wrote the Lunch Lady comic series). The sequel to his first autobiography, Sunshine, was a graphic novel about Jarrett’s experience volunteering at a camp for kids with life-threatening diseases, such as cancer. The first book, Hey Kiddo, gave information about his childhood and finding a place in life with never meeting his father and having a heroin addict for a mom. He grew up with his grandparents, and as you can tell, had a pretty rough childhood. Anyways, Camp Sunshine occurs when Jarrett is a senior in High School, and he gets to go despite extreme competitiveness within his school, because everyone wanted to go. When he arrives, he is told he’ll be a counselor for a specific camper, Diego, one who’s in a wheelchair and doesn’t really want to be there. Diego was a young teenager, so Jarrett was grouped with other ill teenagers and their siblings. Despite their disabilities, the entire group was still able to climb a rock wall (Diego was lifted) and do other fun activities. Jarrett learned a lot about what it’s like to have cancer, but these kids weren’t letting that stop them from having a good time.

He also met a family with a young boy who had cancer, and it was improving at the time of the camp, but he ended up dying from it later on. This struck Jarrett quite hard because he really bonded with that family over the course of the camp. He even attended the young boy’s funeral. He got to know his other classmates, who went with him, really well, because of the special moments at camp they experienced together. The group was from all different aspects of school life, such as sports, theater, and academics, but they all shared the memories from Camp Sunshine. I encourage everyone to read this two-part series if you haven’t already. They’re pretty heavy but really eye-opening if you give them a chance. Also, if you have younger siblings, suggest a Lunch Lady comic or a different book by Mr. Krosoczka. 

Thank you for reading.

Luke