The Book of Lost Thing by John Connolly

Outline: The Book of Lost Things is a poignant story about loss and acceptance.
It follows the events affecting a young boy named David, during wartime.
When David’s mother falls ill and eventually dies,
he must attempt to come to terms with her death before the pain of loss clouds his outlook on life.
David must decide if he is willing to live with loss or create excuses and foster hatred for others i
n an effort to cope with the pain of loss.

When David’s mother falls ill, he tries to think of anything and everything to save her.
In time, however, she must go to a hospital for the terminally ill.
Though he and his father visit her constantly, she eventually dies.
The trip to the hospital is long and exhausting, and the emotional toll of her illness is also tumultuous.
When David’s mother dies, he feels a sense of relief, though he immediately regrets the feeling, replacing
it instead with guilt.

The story begins during wartime in London, when most children are sent to the countryside for their safety.
David, however, remains in London with his father. Yet when his mother dies, his father eventually remarries a short while later.
The new woman’s name is Rose. She was a nurse the father met while in the hospital. The family eventually moves to Rose’s house in the country, but David despises the relationship between his father and Rose. David’s life takes another turn when his father and Rose have a son, Georgie. David does not like having Georgie as a half-brother. For starters, the child takes up a lot of time and attention from the parents. Eventually, David finds himself consumed with hatred for his half-brother.

One day David hears books talking to him. He then finds out that one of the books belonged to Rose’s uncle, Jonathan.
Jonathan disappeared when he was a child, along with an adopted girl named Anna. David wants to know more about the fate of these children. He then hears his mother’s voice calling to him from a garden behind Rose’s house. When he rushes to the garden, he finds a crack in the garden wall. Entering the space, David is surprised to step out of a hollow tree and find himself in a magical land he eventually calls Elsewhere

Biography:

Connolly graduated with a BA in English from Trinity College, Dublin, and an M.A. in journalism from Dublin City University. Before becoming a full-time novelist, he worked as a journalist, a barman, a local government official, a waiter and a gofer at Harrods department store in London. After writing as a freelance journalist for The Irish Times newspaper, he became frustrated with the profession, and began to write his first novel, Every Dead Thing, in his spare time.

Connolly was drawn to the tradition of American crime fiction, because it seemed the best medium through which he could explore the issues of compassion, morality, reparation and salvation. He credits veteran authors Ross Macdonald, James Lee Burke, and Ed McBain as influences, and is often praised for writing in a rich and introspective style of prose.[

Rationale:

I picked up this book for the first time very recently in late 2017 and read it within a week during finals. I immediately fell in love with the style of narration and the way Connolly characterized the populace of his world and how he described them. I firmly believe that this book will also grasp the attention of secondary students in the same fashion, as even though it is written about a young boy during World War 2, it is done so in a highly relatable fashion that even I was able to very quickly become invested in his story. This story revolves heavily around loss, death, moral action, coming-of-age, depression, anger, and mental disorder while doing so in an easy to read fashion with low shock value. This novel holds great opportunity to explore non-normality in characters.

Teaching Ideas:

1.  This book is filled with so many interesting and diverse characters that it can be used quite easily for students to practice character analysis and comparison, either in discussion or essay writing.

2. Students can discuss how loss and trauma impact the choices of David as he moves throughout the narrative.

3. Students can write about a difficult moral choice they have had to make in their lives or anticipate making.

4. Students can create diagrams that assess why certain creatures were chosen to represent certain human characteristics.

Age/Ability:

This novel would be introduced to 10th grade high school sophomores. The language flows well and is easy to understand, but the story deals with mature themes.

Obstacles:

This novel contains death of family members and inferences to homosexuality. The death is from an illness and is non-graphic so I do not anticipate complications arising from it. The homosexual themes are not explicit and are nonsexual so I do not anticipate administration objecting to it, however students and parents may object regardless. I could not skip it as this character is contained within a large portion of the book, so I would give students the option to read The Fault in Our Stars as it carries similar themes.