Title: Hey, Kiddo; How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction
Author: Jerett Krosoczka
SUMMARY
If your looking for a real life story that tugs on your heart strings, then "Hey, Kiddo" by Jarrett Krosoczka is the book for you. This SEL young adult book is the personal memoir of the author Jarrett Krosoczka. This book starts off in the perspective of Jarrett as a young child, and gradually takes you on a journey through his childhood and adolescent years. I personally listened to this story as an audio book, and would highly suggest others to do so as well. The author, Jarrett Krosoczka put a great amount of detail and work into having parts of the story be read by specific voice actors. Some of the voices in the audio are actually done by the characters themselves and/or their children. It makes for an engaging reading/listening experience. As a forewarning though, this book does contain explicit language at times throughout the course of the story.
The story starts off with young Jarrett giving a small bit of familial background knowledge. Jarrett is a young boy who is raised by his grandparents Joe and Shirley. Jarrett's mother's name is Leslie, and makes appearances throughout the story periodically. Leslie got pregnant with Jarrett at a young age, and struggled with what we later in the book find out is an addiction to heroin. At the beginning of the story Jarrett is with his mother for a short time, until things with her have progressed bad enough that his grandpa Joe steps in. Leslie and her mother Shirley do not get along, Leslie blames a lot of her addiction issues on her mother's drinking. However, Leslie and her father Joe do get along, and he convinces Leslie that it is in her and Jarrett's best interest for her to sign over her parental rights of Jarrett to him. It is around this point in the story that Leslie serves time in prison for drug use and then later goes to a rehabilitation center. This tends to be a reoccurring cycle in Leslie's life throughout this story, however, there are a few durations where she is living nearby and visits Jerrett. Jarrett's mother Leslie, writes to Jarrett many times throughout the duration of her imprisonments and treatments. Ultimately, though Jarretts mother succumbs to her addiction to heroin when when Jarret is an adult. At the beginning of the story, Jarrett does not know who his biological father is, however, his mother and grandparents do. Jarrett's father at the beginning does not want a relationship with his son. By the end of the story though, Jarrett's father reaches out to Jeremy and with a slow but rough start rekindles a relationship with his son and introduces Jarrett to two half siblings. Throughout the duration of the story, we journey through with Jarrett as he experiences friendships, and moving schools. Jarrett also find a passion for doing artwork, which he later goes on to pursue a college education in. This book is very detailed and engaging to the reader, and gives a true sense of the life that Jarrett experienced through childhood and his adolescent years.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
This SEL young adult book provides ample opportunity for serious discussions to take place among students. If I were to teach this book to a classroom, I would do it with caution because of some of the language that takes place. However, with parental support and persmission I would definitely implement it in my classroom because it is a very well written and meaningful story. "Hey, Kiddo" allows for students to see the hardships and empathize with real life situations of others. An activity that would be intersting to do with students after reading this book would be to have the students compose a questionnaire of things to ask the author. This book is a memoir over the author's own life, and is very relatable and his life successes are very impressive based off of the hardships that he experiences in his life. Another activity that can be done to correlate with the reading of this book would be to have students write a memoior over an experience or event that has their own life.
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