Sunshine by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

At the time Jarrett begins to volunteer at Camp Sunshine, he is sixteen-years-old and in high school,  living with his grandparents, his own parents mostly out of his life in any meaningful way. His grandmother has lots of questions and wonders how such a camp could be a positive experience. She can't comprehend how it would not be depressing being around kids diagnosed with cancer. But Jarrett is undeterred and so his grandfather drives him to Holy Rosary School to meet the van taking the high school students to camp.

His high school has a tradition of seniors volunteering for a week at Camp Sunshine. Jarrett was one of the lucky ones whose name was chosen at random along with five other students. Those students are Chad O'Halleran, Andrea Kim, Erin Price, Christine Lowery, Jonathan Garnier and two chaperones, the no-nonsense Sister Frances, and chain-smoking Mrs. (MaryBeth) Gormley. They arrive at Camp Sunshine after a three hour drive in the school van. As they drive to their trailer on Brown Road, Sister Frances hands out everyone's assignments.

Jarrett is assigned to a camper named Diego with special needs. Diego has advanced brain cancer, uses a wheelchair and has tubes under his arm and in his chest.

Mrs. Gormley reminds Jarrett and the other students how important this week will be to the campers and their families - it might be the happiest week they have had in a long time. She hints that their perspective will change throughout the week.

Jarrett is overwhelmed as he reads through the camp manual about the medical needs of the campers - something he's not responsible for. The other guys in Jarrett's trailer are nervous since none of them have met someone with cancer.

At orientation that evening, they meet Papa Frank, a kindly retiree who runs the camp program,  and their team leaders, Joy and Gary. 

While waiting in the dining room for Diego and his family, Jarrett meets Shelly Orfaos and her children, Jason, Mary and Eric, who has cancer.

On the first day of camp, Jarrett meets Diego and his parents, Carlos and Carmen who tell Jarrett that Deigo has suffered some cognitive decline and that he doesn't want to be at the camp. But as the week goes on, Diego begins to open up and enjoy himself, and Jarrett finds himself forming a deep bond with little Eric and the other campers who will impact his life in ways he can't imagine.

Discussion

Sunshine is the follow-up to Krosoczka's poignant memoir about growing up in his grandparents home, while dealing with an absent father and a mother with an addiction. 

Sunshine opens with Jarrett on his way to Sunshine Camp to volunteer for a week at the camp for children with terminal cancer. The graphic novel chronicles his journey through the week beginning with the start of camp, to life after camp and into college. In his Author's Note at the back, Jarrett indicates that "While the story in this book centers on that first week that I entered into this important work, some of the incidents and stories that I included are taken from subsequent years of working at Camp Sunshine and The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp." 

Initially Jarrett wonders what he can offer his camper, thirteen-year-old Diego, who has such intense needs and is only a few years younger. Jarrett is also disappointed with his assignment because he wanted to work with younger children. However, as the week goes on, Jarrett's perspective begins to change as he comes to understand how the camp helps the children. Life for them is very different: a world filled with doctors and nurses, while their healthy brothers and sisters are "...lost in the shadows of their siblings' illness." At camp, Jarrett comes to realize that the kids with cancer are "the mainstream kids" for once. Jarrett begins to see the campers in a different way too: he begins "...to look past the wheelchairs, bald heads, and oxygen tanks to see these kids as just...well, kids."  He also realizes these families experience pain, fear, and loneliness and that camp gives them a respite from this. 

As the end of camp approaches, both the campers and the teen volunteers struggle with the intense emotions they are experiencing. The volunteers have grown attached to their campers emotionally, and there is the realization that some of the campers will not survive their illness. For the campers, it means a return to the reality of their lives, hospitals, procedures, doctors and nurses. On the last day, Diego tells Jarrett that going home will mean people looking at him with pity, seeing him as "Diego with cancer." For Jarrett, coming home means a significant change in his perspective on life. Despite Jarrett having some significant issues in his own life regarding his parents, he finds these don't define him anymore and that his pervious worries seem unimportant.

Perhaps the most moving part of Krosoczka's graphic novel is what came a few years after his initial experience at Camp Sunshine. By this time Jarrett was in college and had continued to keep in touch with Eric's family. They had spent summers and even Christmas together. But Jarrett began having a dream that would turn out to be a haunting premonition of what was to come. 

In reflecting on his time at Camp Sunshine, in his Author's Note, Jarrett writes about what he learned from his experience and writes, "Perhaps I connected so quickly with them because I understood what it was like to yearn for childhood during childhood. Trauma has a way of forcing you to grow up while you are still in a small body."  Jarrett was uniquely placed to help campers like Eric and his family, and the young teen, Diego, because he too had experienced fear, loneliness and isolation as a child. When Jarrett and the other teen volunteers were on their way to the camp, the were cautioned by Mrs. Gormley that "this experience is bigger than any of you.", that they would quickly learn from the experience what was important in life,  and that no matter how much work they put into helping the children, they would get back much more than they gave. For Jarrett and his fellow volunteers, that was definitely what happened.

Sunshine is about so much more than volunteering at a camp for kids with cancer. Sharing ourselves with those whose life circumstances are hard, offers the chance to put our own lives in perspective, to bring just a little bit of joy to others while easing their fears, pain, and isolation. For Jarrett Krosoczka, Camp Sunshine gave back more than he anticipated, just as Mrs. Gormley predicted it would! The lovely, joyful picture of Jarrett at the end of the book is proof this is so.

Book Details:

Sunshine by Jarrett J. Kroscoczka
New York: Graphix,      2023
240 pp.