Skip to main content

WHAT DADDY DID by Neal Shusterman


copyright date: 1991
primarily marketed for: young adults (8th grade up)

If you like A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer and think What Daddy Did by Neal Shusterman is going to be another true story to indulge your desire to read about the human spirit’s will to endure, think again.   What Daddy Did is so much more.  So much bigger. I started reading it one night before falling asleep.  Two hours later I still hadn’t closed the book and I don’t remember having taken a breath.  I awoke the next morning still within the powerful grip of this story.


What Daddy Did is the fictionalized true story of young boy who Shusterman calls Preston Scott.  When Preston was only eleven years old, his Mom was shot in the back of the head and murdered by his father after marital struggles tore their family apart.  Although the book tells about the events leading up to the murder as well as the moments during which the news unfolded for Preston, the claims that Shusterman makes in the book’s introduction regarding the story’s focus are true: this is not a story about a murder.   In fact, Shusterman’s words set the story up better than any words I could offer here.  And he delivers just the story he promises:

Preston’s is a story of life and death, of anger and forgiveness, of an unspeakable crime that no human being should have to endure, and the unbelievable family that not only endured it, but took the very bullet that shattered their wold and used it to carefully rebuild their lives.
His tale is all of these things, but more than anything else, Preston Scott’s story is a story of overwhelming love—the kind of love that can change the world—and if you never before believed in the power of love, Preston’s story will make you a believer.
Labels:

Comments

  1. ShannonApril 3, 2013 at 7:33 PM

    Another one to read. I'll never be able to keep up! :)

    Shannon
    http://www.irunreadteach.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE LITTLE PRINCE by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

copyright date: 1943 primarily marketed for: everyone The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint- Exupéry was a reread for me.   I read this book for the first time when I was in high school.   All I remembered about it was that I expected it to be too complex for me to understand, and I was surprised when at its charming simplicity.   I always remember feeling like I had a special place in my heart for The Little Prince , but I didn’t remember exactly why. It was written so long ago and is translated from French that it is no wonder I first expected to find its meaning elusive.   However, I am sure that if you pick up this book, it will nestle itself into a special place in your heart as well. Simply, The Little Prince is the story of a clever man who has never lost the child inside of himself and finds himself stranded in the desert after a plan crash.   In the desert, he happens upon the little prince who is traveling to earth from his d...
4 comments
Read more

ONE FOR THE MURPHYS by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

copyright date: May 2012 primarily marketed for: intermediate readers (5 th grade and up) I sort of expected One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt to be one of those overly sappy books with unrealistic, sickeningly sweet characters.  However, although the storyline might make it sound sappy, the characters are realistic and dynamic.  After a traumatic incident that lands both she and her mother in the hospital, Carley Connors is taken away and placed in foster care with the Murphy family.  The only life Carley has known is one of put-downs, food scraps, and shopping for clothes in Salvation Army drop boxes.  Until she meets the Murphys.  The Murphys are too good to be true: Julia, the mom, happily makes home-cooked meals for her three boys and firefighting, sports-loving husband.  In fact, Julia isn’t even rattled by Carley’s rough around the edges attitude.  At first, Carley despises the Murphys and the way they make he...
4 comments
Read more

BENEATH A METH MOON by Jacqueline Woodson

copyright date: 2012 primarily marketed for: young adult readers Sometimes being a teacher has perks—not just the heartwarming, fulfilling in a my-life-is-worthwhile-and-I-love-what-I-do kind of way—but actual, honest-to-goodness tangible material perks.   Like this book.   When I went to the National Council of Teachers of English conference in November, I was given a FREE copy of Beneath a Meth Moon , which I was able to have signed by Jacqueline Woodson .   This book doesn’t even come out until next month.   How cool is that? I believe Woodson is cool incarnate—if cool was a person walking this earth, cool would be Jacqueline Woodson (or poet Nikki Giovanni, just saying).   She just has a way with words that is smooth and fluid.   Although Beneath a Meth Moon is not written in verse, it is grounded in the language of Woodson’s poetic soul.   It is not just the language that drew me to this story, though.   I was also drawn to th...
6 comments
Read more