Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones

Sones, Sonya. 1999. Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0439250706

Stop Pretending, a beautifully written and honest verse novel, is the story of Cookie, whose sister "goes crazy" on Christmas Eve. Cookie writes about not only her sister's mental illness, but also other typical adolescent concerns: a new boyfriend, the betrayal of friends, and dealing with parents. Cookie's struggle to reconcile the happy memories of life with her sister before her mental illness with the harsh reality of visiting her sister in a mental institution is not only thought-provoking, but also makes for beautiful poetry. She wonders:

Does the
man who wanders
the neighborhood, wearing
three heavy overcoats in the
swelter

of the
summer, have a
little sister who lies
awake at night wondering where
he is?

Adolescents will identify with the confusion that Cookie feels--not just about her family situation, but also about school and friendships. Adolescent readers will also rejoice as Cookie begins to find her footing in this new world, this world where her sister is not quite the sister she remembers fondly, where her family doesn't quite work the way it did in the past, where she herself is not quite as carefree as she used to be.

AWARDS & REVIEWS:

2000 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)
2000 Quick Picks for Young Adults (Recomm. Books for Reluctant Young Readers)

"Individually, the poems appear simple and unremarkable, snapshot portraits of two sisters, a family, unfaithful friends, and a sweet first love. Collected, they take on life and movement, the individual frames of a movie that in the unspooling become animated, telling a compelling tale and presenting a painful passage through young adolescence." --Kirkus Reviews

CONNECTIONS:

Compare one of the poems in this novel with a poem from another verse novel (maybe Out of the Dust) to look at the differences in the authors' style, meter, and word choice.

Students could create artwork for one of the poems or for several of the poems (one of the poems specifically talks about the art Cookie creates of her family: her mother's eyes are zippers, her father's eyes are broken windows).