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.

Hey Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

The Prologue opens with Jarrett being taught to drive by his grandfather Joe in a cemetery. When they visit Joe's parents' grave, Jarrett wonders where his mother will end up and if he'll ever meet his long absent father in this life.

Jarrett's grandparents, Shirley Ruth Olson and Joseph D. Krosoczka were married on August 28, 1948 in Worcester, Massachusetts. They met in high school. With World War II, Joe enlisted even though he was only seventeen and spent the war building highways in Guam. Shirley broke up with him during the war but after the war they reconnected and were married. 

Joe had various jobs while they started their family: first there was Joey and then Leslie was born in 1955, the year Joe opened his factory. Stephen was born next, and then Shirley miscarried, which really affected her. They then had two more girls, Lynn and then Holly.

Jarrett's mother, Leslie became pregnant. The man she believed to be the father claimed the baby wasn't his. Although her mother was upset, Leslie had the baby, named Jarrett and moved into a house her father bought for her. Life was good for Jarrett and his mother for the first few years, but soon cracks appeared.

After being pulled over by police with Jarrett in the car, Jarret's grandparents decided to seek custody of him. Leslie had been stealing for some time and they didn't want Jarrett to end up in foster care. So Jarrett went to live with Joe and Shirley and their home became his new home. Soon Jarrett was sent to preschool. Life at his grandparents home could be bad at times too. Joe and Shirley would fight when Joe came home drunk, but Shirley also drank and swore.

Jarrett began attending Gates Lane School where he had some wonderful teachers. Jarrett thought his mother would be back but she would never return. They wrote letters to one another, his mother making her own cards. His mother missed his birthdays, but the rest of the family were always there. Jarrett also learned the truth about his mother - that she was an addict and was in jail.

As it turned out, his mother began using drugs when she was thirteen-years-old but over time things got much worse. She stole to buy heroin, had younger sisters return stolen merchandise for the money to buy drugs, and even stole from her own parents. 

But for Jarrett, the lifesaver would turn out to be his artistic talent. He used his art to help him cope as a child. Art classes at Worcester Art Museum, art classes in high school at Holy Name High School, becoming a cartoonist for the school newspaper all helped him develop his gift.

As high school came to a close, Jarrett was able to reach out to his father, establish a relationship with him and accept his mother as she was - his mother who loved him but also a person with an addiction.

Discussion

Hey Kiddo is a poignant memoir of cartoonist, artist, Jarrett Krosoczka's growing upin his grandparents home because his mother Leslie was a heroin addict. The graphic memoir which is divided into eight chapters, begins with the story of his grandparents Joe and Shirley and follows their early family life, his mother's unplanned pregnancy and abandonment by Jarrett's father and his growing-up years until college.

Jarrett's memoir explores the disappointment and loss he experienced when his mother spiralled out of control because of her heroin addiction, resulting in her being in jail or in treatment programs. This resulted in him having to live with his grandparents and her missing birthdays, graduations and other special family times. But it also chronicles the love and care his grandparents gave him and his journey towards a relationship with his father, Richard Hennessy.

Initially Jarrett was angry and felt he never wanted to meet his father. Unlike his grandfather however, Jarrett believed in facing the ghosts of the past. One of them was his father. When he learned his father's name, his absence became a presence to him. Jarrett didn't know what to do with this information so he did nothing.

However, Jarrett's father wrote him a letter apologizing but Jarrett wasn't keen on responding. It was a transformative experience at a camp for children with cancer that made Jarrett wonder if he had siblings through his father. This was the motivation for Jarrett reaching out to his father and eventually establishing a lasting relationship with him.

The memoir also explores the positive effect art had on his life, eventually becoming his life's work. For Jarrett, art was a lifeline that allowed him to cope with what was happening in his life. It allowed him an escape and some control, something children and teens do not have. Drawing was initially as way to get attention as a child, but eventually evolved into a way to deal with life as a teen.

Despite all the challenges Jarrett encountered growing up, the memoir ends on a hopeful, positive tone with the author recognizing what he does have in his life at the time of his high school graduation.  In his Author's Note, Jarrett tells readers the important events in his life post-high school. He writes that what happens in your childhood and teen years does not have to be perpetuated into adulthood. He also mentions the toll addiction took on his mother.

There is also an interesting note on the art in the graphic memoir. Jarrett's grandfather always wore a pocket square in his breast pocket of his suit jacket. After his grandfather passed away, Jarrett's then eighteen-month-old daughter Zoe chose a burnt orange pocket square as something she would always keep. The burnt orange became part of the limited palette for the memoir and is the colour used in the title, also a reference to what Jarrett was often called by his grandparents.

Hey Kiddo offers a touching glimpse into a childhood framed by addiction, loss, but also forgiveness, acceptance and the meaning of family. The dedication says it all " For every reader who recognizes this experience, I see you."

Book Details:

Hey Kiddo. How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

New York: Scholastic, Graphix     2018

299 pp.