Rebound
Summary:
Charlie Bell is twelve years old and is going through the toughest time in his life following the recent death of his father. He feels trapped, angry, and sad in this new world without his dad. Though he has two good friends, CJ and Skinny, who try to support him, nothing feels the same anymore, and he gets into some trouble. His mother insists that he spends the summer holidays with his grandparents, his father’s parents, who live two hours away, Charlie is angry and does not want to go. However, he soon falls into a routine with his grandparents, walking and working with his grandfather, and playing basketball with his cousin Roxie, and finds new connections to his dad. Charlie’s summer is not all easy and he has to deal with a serious incident that threatens to turn his world upside down again.
Edited by: Dublin City University
Comment:
This novel in verse deals with a young boy’s grief and anger, and his struggle to express these feelings to anyone, after the death of his father. The early parts of the book are interspersed with comic book/graphic novel style pages in homage to his dad, whom he portrays as a basketball hero, flashbacks to his sudden death, and all the silences that now fill his life as communication with his mother breaks down. The cultivation of a new relationship with his paternal grandfather provides an important male role model in his life, while his new relationship with his cousin Roxie, and her talent at basketball and position on the male basketball team, provides another role model for Charlie and positively extends the boundaries of gender norms and expectations. An incident where Charlie ends up in police custody reinforces the dangers that exist for young Black boys. This incident is one which contributes to the repair of the mother-son relationship, in Charlie’s mother’s emotive assertion that she needs him too.