This is a book about a boy (narrator) who observes his neighbor (young teenage boy) at different times throoughout a short period of time (my guess is a month or two). The neighbor boy plays basketball and is very isolated from other people. The main character/narrator wants to play with the neighbor boy but on several occasions decides against it. The narrator notices his sister making fun of the neighbor because of his funny clothes and the little boy's rationale for this is "I guess that's the way big sisters are". When the main character sees the neighbor boy feeding the pigeons he almost decides to go up on the roof and join him. However, he notices that the neighbor boy is crying so he decides against it. Eventually the narrator finds out that the neighbor boy committed suicide. The book never states that the boy committed suicide, but the pictures and the text makes the audience infer that that is what happened. For instance the sister says to the little boy (narrator): I don't know why he did it, he wasn't so bad. The sister probably felt guilty for making fun of someone she really didn't know. The little boy felt really guilty for not trying to be friends with him, when he really did want to get to know him. There is a high suicide rate for teenagers, and children need to be aware of the negative effects of bullying, stereotyping and not accepting people can have on young adults. This is a book that I would definitely share with a group of older intermediate level readers because even though this is a controversial topic it is something that is relevant or may be relevant for them in the near future. Middle school and high school are some of the hardest experiences people go through in life. If kids are aware of the statistics and the effects having a friend can make, they may be more willing to accept people that are a little bit different from themselves.
Suicide is a really tough topic to address in the classroom. I think that sharing this book in a classroom is something a teacher should approach with caution because s/he doesn't know the background of all the children. Maybe someone in the class knew sonmeone who committed suicide. For this reason I would be vary careful. If this book happen to fit into something the teacher was teaching in class, like bullying or if a book the class was reading addresses suicide it sounds like this would be a good book to share with the class, since it seems to deal with the topic of suicide sensitively
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