Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

Crutcher, C. (1993). Staying fat for Sarah Byrnes. New York: Greenwillow Books.

 Eric Calhoune has been best friends with Sarah Byrnes since middle school.  They are complete opposites but they do share something.  They were outcasts at their Jr. High. Eric is obese and Sarah’s face is burned.  Then everything changed when Eric joined the swim team.  He wanted to lose some of his flab.  Sarah’s problem could not be changed.  She had an accident when she was little and it left her with burn scars on her face.   Now in high school, Sarah needs Eric more than ever.  She has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital because she has been become mute.  He goes and visits her daily at the hospital and then discovers that she was faking it, so that she could escape her abusive father. He realizes that it was her father that caused her burns.  Sarah thinks that her mother can be found then everything would be better but she discovers that it isn’t as easy as she thought.  In the end, Sarah does learn the truth about her burns and a new life for Sarah. 


This realistic fiction deals with bullying and violence at home and at school.  Both Sarah and Eric have to deal with bullies and they learn to overcome it because of their friendship.  I feel that this is a great read for high school students because they are dealing with self-image issues at this stage of their lives.  It also shows that have a good support system of friends is a good thing to have at any age.  

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