North Reading Reads 2007
My Sister's Keeper
 by Jodi Picoult

WELCOME TO NORTH READING READS 2007!

We invite you to join the North Reading community for our fourth town-wide reading program. We hope you'll enjoy the experience of My Sister's Keeper as much as you've enjoyed our other selections.

"It's a simple thing, this coming together around books�Communities sharing a book can crack the isolation of technology that allows people to do almost everything without seeing another human being. The invitation to read gives a person permission to clear space on the jammed schedule for reconnecting with the joy of story hour.

What if the whole country read one book? How about the world? Think about it."

The Boston Globe, 3/1/05

The titles selected for 2007 are:

  

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Jodi Picoult is an award-winning and popular New Hampshire novelist.  Some of her better-known titles include The Tenth Circle, Vanishing Acts, Second Glance, and Perfect Match. She is known for her compelling explorations of contemporary characters and issues.
 

Jodi
My Sister's Keeper is the story of Anna, a young teenager who was conceived by her parents deliberately to provide a bone marrow match for their older daughter, who has leukemia.  Always defined in trms of her sister, Anna begins to question her situations, and challenge her family;s assumptions.  The family falls into chaos.  This is a gripping character study, and a hard examination of some of the ethical issues that accompany today's galloping advances in biotechnology.

To learn more about Jodi Picoult, please visit her website: www.jodipicoult.com

Here's what reviews have said about My Sister's Keeper--

   "My Sister's Keep is a beautiful, heartbreaking, controversial, and honest book. Booklist

  "Picoult explores a complex subject with bradao and clarity, and comes up with a heartwrenching, unexpected plot twist at the book's conclusion.  Publisher's Weekly

  "This beautifully crafted novel will grab readers with its stunning topic...Now go discuss it with your book club." People magazine

   "Expect a powerfully poignant, page-turning read." San Antonio Express-News
 
   "My Sister's Keeper is a thrill to read." Chicago Sun-Times

   "It is difficult to find a book combining a timely moral dilemma with well-drawn characters for whom one cares. Picoult has written such a book."
                                                               The Boston Herald
  
 

North Reading Reads 2007 events

All events will take place in the Flint Memorial Library Activity Room
unless otherwise noted.

Date & Time
Day
Event (click on title for more info)
Feb. 8, 6 PM Thursday Opening Event, Readings and Music
Feb. 28, 10AM Wednesday North Reading Book Discussion Club
March 5, 6PM Monday Reception for Artists
March 6, 7PM Tuesday Klaus Kubierschky on "Changing Perspectives in Astronomy"
March 8, 2PM Thursday Book Discussion at Senior Center
March 13, 7PM Tuesday Evening Book Group, discussion led by Marci Bailey
April 10, 7PM Tuesday Anne Underwood, "Bioethics--Framing Principled Questions"

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My Sister's Keeper Writing Contest


    ReWrite The Ending


You're invited to rewrite the ending of My Sister's Keeper, from the point where Anna is driving away from the courtroom, which begins on p. 411, in both the hardback and paperback editions, and on p. 692 in the large print. There will be one high school winner and one adult winner. Each winner will receive a $100 gift card to Barnes & Noble.  These prizes are made possible by the Friends of the Flint Memorial Library and the North Reading High School Parents' Association.

CONTEST RULES
 

                                                    WINNERS

    Below are the winning entries:

         

My Sister's Keeper  Alternate Ending by Elise Auger

 

Anna

The rain, pelting against the windshield, masks the thumping in my chest as I ask Campbell to do me one last favor. We are driving from the courthouse, finally having completed the paperwork that legally declares me medically emancipated.
"Is this another free one?" he asks in mock skepticism.
I just tip my head, and direct him to the one place I started this entire law suit to get away from. Sometimes we just need someone to tell us we do not have to for us to want to.

You would not guess it is the middle of the day from the looks of Kate's dark hospital room. The only light comes from the illuminated strip behind her head, which creates the false impression of an uncanny halo, casting shadows on her porcelain features. Clothed in a white hospital gown and surrounded by pale, thin sheets, she appears to be an angel.
Her eyelids are stretched thin across her unmoving irises like a child outgrown her clothes. Except Kate has not outgrown her clothes, she has outgrown her life. She has lived on borrowed time for years - hand-me-downs from a younger sibling.
I walk to her and climb onto the thin mattress slowly and with cautious movements so as not to wake her. With my head on her fragile shoulder, I trace the soft skin on the back of her hand, following currents of delicate, blue veins - rivers to another place and time.
I attempt to imagine my life five or ten years from now, but nothing comes to me. The only thing I can say for sure is that there will be one less Fitzgerald at the holidays, one less toothbrush in the bathroom, one less birthday to celebrate, and one less smile to wake up to.
When the tears begin to sting my cheeks, rubbed raw by the rough hospital sheets, I realize I am crying. Even after all the time we spent preparing to say goodbye, learning to accept the inevitable, I still took the years for granted.
When I finally lift my face, I find my self staring into Kate's broken smile.

Kate

Anna's cheeks are tear streaked and her eyelashes are clumped together by moisture. For the first time, her irises - twin, sapphire pools - strike me as tarnished. For a thirteen-year-old to have seen so much heartache is crushing.
"There are so many things I want to say to you," she whispers, her voice broken by gasps.
Tears spring to my own eyes for the first time in months. I have made myself familiar with the idea that the unavoidable is going to happen sooner or later. I've become so consumed in counting down the days that I forget how many people I will leave behind. It's my fault, I know she is thinking, and all I want to tell her is no. I did this all by myself.
"Where did all the time go?" she asks me, her eyes pleading for a miracle I do not have.
She was once the miracle.
"It's not gone yet, Anna. I'm still here."
Holding her heaving body against my own with all my draining strength, I tell myself this is not going to be the last time I say those words.
 

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My Sister's Keeper
By Jodi Picoult

An Alternative Ending
By Dina Flood
 


ANNA

After the hearing, Campbell stuck around to wrap up some paperwork. He hugged me from the side with little squeeze like the kind you would get from your teacher on the last day of school. For him, that was huge. As I walked out of the courtroom, the first person I laid eyes on was Jesse. Without saying a word, he took me into his arms with an embrace that enveloped every part of me. I let out a huge sigh and finally sobbed like I had wanted to for so long. All these years, he has been the one person to let me be me. His feelings of neglect mirrored mine only he took his anger out childishly while I handled mine legally. Two extremes toward the same goal.

We followed Julia out the back door of the courthouse. When the doors opened, the sky looked like it was preparing to come crumbling down. Trees swayed in the wind and the smell of rain and warm humidity consumed me. As soon as we were in the shelter of Julia's car, almost like clockwork, the sky opened up and let out the rains to cleanse us all.

SARA

For so many years, I couldn't help but feel that the reason for Kate's continued existence relied on Anna. I was prepared to stop having children after Kate. We conceived Anna for Kate. That was the plan. But maybe the master plan was not for Kate to cure and grow old. Maybe Kate's sickness was placed on us so that Anna could ultimately exist. Rather than Anna being Kate's gift, maybe Kate's sickness was Anna's ticket into our family.

18 years later
CAMPBELL

Just as we are about to leave the house, the phone rings. It's my Auntie Kate so I know this will be a long one. I take my hockey bag off my shoulder and slump into the chair by the door. Auntie Kate doesn't have kids so she has plenty of time to chitchat. On a regular day, I would be thoroughly annoyed, but I'm nervous as it is for today's hockey tryouts and so I enjoy this time to settle down. I'm the only girl trying out for the guy's team and even though my dad says I'm better than most of them, I think the coach has a thing against girls playing a "guy" sport so I'll have to work extra hard to prove myself. Mom says I shouldn't feel that way. She says we should never feel we have to prove anything to anybody.

I look up to her so much. I think everyone does. Uncle Jesse says that it was her courage that made him want to be a better person. I think she's amazing. She gave her sister a vital part of herself and though it has restricted her in so many ways, she wouldn't change a thing. My grandfather says that the stars guide us through life. She's my star.


STUDENT SECOND PLACE: Amy Laing

My Sister's Keeper 411

Kate

It's raining. I look out the window, the rain is pouring down, obscuring my view. I begin thinking about the rain, the taste and smell of the moist air, the "la-tin" it made when it hit our house's roof. That shrill eerie echo is now replaced by the beeping of my heart monitor. I smell no rain now, only bleach. Instead of moisture the air is empty and dry; it is all so different than the way I thought it would be.

I knew this day was coming for longer than most people do, I think, I guess I am lucky in that. What most would consider a blessing evolved into a monotonous blur of time and space. Exhaustion is all that lies ahead and all that lies behind.

Anna is suddenly in my hospital room, her skin penetrated by the moist rain air, "Hi, Kate."

She says the two words like she forgets that I am in a hospital at all.

"Hi, Anna," I reply somberly.

She moves over to my bed so slowly it seems she is being pulled away from it. Her hands are in her jacket pockets, something she always does when she is nervous.

"I want to give you my kidney," she whispers.

This straightforward way she says this stops me from disagreeing immediately. She begins to frown a little at first, then her eyebrows begin to twitch as she strains her eyes to hold back the tears.

"You don't have to die today. You can live for as many as ten more years, maybe more if you're lucky."

"And wait for another relapse."

This statement hits her hard, but I can tell she thought about it already.

"You could be a dance teacher. I know you would like that. I would like that."

"Would you really like waiting to give me more of you? It won't end you know."

Anna stops trying to control her tears, they are flowing in steady streams down her face. The black mascara ridden rivers remind me of the rain falling outside. I turn my eyes to the window again

"I am always going to be like this. Is this really how you want your life to be?"

Anna sobs in loud gasps, "Please."

Dr. Chance slips into the room with a clipboard and a row of residents. I can hardly believe that he arrived here now by accident.

"Dr. Chance," I sigh. "Anna wants to give me her kidney, so I suppose we better get started soon."

Anna hugs me, somehow reaching around the wires and IV to put her hands behind my shoulders. I think that she needs me more than I need her. Perhaps I am my sister's keeper.

STUDENT THIRD PLACE: Kassondra Glenn

Friday

"No my friend, darkness is not everywhere, for here and there I find faces illuminated

from within; paper lanterns among the dark tress.' -Carole Gorges

Anna

E-MOTION5 ARE- LIKE- 5CAK5. As they get older they become more and more difficult to rip open, until all that's left to remind you of the deep crimson which once slickly seeped out of your skin is an unsightly white line, only wishing it could transport you back in time to everything you once felt so vividly inside. For a while you're glad to be rid of it because it hurt or itched or made you self conscious, until one day you wake up, warm summer rain pelting furiously against your window as if to be completely synonymous with the pounding of your hollow heart, and you think about how much you miss that feeling. I know the freshness of Kate's emotions that come with the frequent scarring of her delicate physique. I've had the very wounds and burdens that created me cleanly sliced open by my newly discovered independence. But Kate bleeds on the outside. It's much easier to ignore pain that Is obscured by unmarked skin.

We are staying at the hospital tonight. As much as it kills me to gaze into Kate's afflicted eyes I know my options are closed. My mother and father would not dare leave the bedside of the child they believed to be sicker, more deserving of their precious attention, for a daughter who would not give a kidney to save a life. "An unwanted life," effortlessly became the sinful and brutally honest follow-up thought. Jesse was God-Knows-Where, doing the things Jesse did, if only to realize the people he thought he once loved had turned the precious ray of hope once held especially for him into another for Kate, like it might change the way life itself was created to be. And, expectedly, Campbell was spending his time with his obsession of the moment, Julia. I am stuck, unable to speak, perfectly able to cry the tears that feel so incredibly hypocritical.

***

It is pitch black, and the midnight moon does not even stop by to shine a comforting ray of light upon my shrouded face. I am completely overcome with the restlessness of insomnia. Hesitantly, I settle myself in a chair beside Kate's bed. She is hauntingly, ghostly white, almost to the point of being frightening. Nonetheless, I put my hand on hers and feel my fingers gently graze the IV tube which sticks, almost naturally now, out of her slender wrist. I feel death, a chill I have never felt before, the wind before the thunderstorm arises. The monitor tracking Kate's heartbeat is abnormal, but still I am calm. Tears fall, dropping faster with each passing second, but I hold on to Kate's hand, tighter now. I whisper slowly, "Thank you, Kate, Thank you," hanging on to every word like it will be my last. Nobody stirs;

no nurses meddle into our moment. It's peaceful. Everything Kate always wished for. Our consciences are clear.

As the monitor flat lines, signaling what will be the end of the sole part of myself I knew so well, I hear the distant, faint sound of a siren. I venture to the window only to find myself peering at the far away stack of smoke interrupting the deep night sky, flawing the placement of the shimmering stars and straining the brilliant navy color. And for the first time in a long time, a small smile dances in the corner of my lips.

 

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LINKS TO SELECTED SITES OF INTEREST

Family Law

Massachusetts Bar Association: www.massbar.org

Massachusetts Trial Court Libraries: www.lawlib.state.ma.us

Bioethics

National Institutes of Health Bioethics Resources: http://bioethics.od.nih.gov

MIT article, �The Pros and Cons of Genetic Engineering,� 2005: http://web.mit.edu/murj/www/v12/v12-Features;v12-f4.pdf

Other communities discussing this title:

Bridgewater (MA) State College: www.bridgew.edu/ccp/onebook.cfm

Kent County, MI: www.onebookkent.org

Duke University: www.duke.edu

 

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. My sister's Keeper explores the moral, practical and emotional complications of putting one human being in pain or danger for the wellbeing of another.  Discuss the different kinds of ethical problems that Anna, as the "designer baby," presents in this story. Did your view change as the story progressed?  Why or why not ? Has this novel changed any of your opinions about other conflicts in bioethics like stem cell research or genetically manipulated offspring?

2. Do you feel that it's ethical to conceive a child that meets specific genetic requirements?

3. On page 122, Julia says, "Even if the law says that no one is reponsible for anyone else, helping someone who needs it is the right things to do."  Who understood better how to "help" Kate, Sara or Anna?

4.  Did Anna do the right thing, honoring Kate's wishes?

 

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IF YOU LIKED My Sister's Keeper, we suggest...

Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg
Past the Bleachers by Chris Bohjalian
Before and After by Rosellen Brown
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Properties of Water  by Ann Hood
When Madeline Was Young by Jane Hamilton
In the Middle of All This by Freed Leebron
While I was Gone by Sue Miller
A Theory of Relativity by Jacqueline Mitchard
Home Fires by Luanne Rice
 

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NORTH READING READS 2007 ORGANIZERS & SPONSERS

North Reading Reads 2007 is a joint project of the Flint Memorial Library and North Reading High School Library.

The project is sponsored, in part, by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, made possible by the Library Services And Technology Act, and administered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

Additional Partners and Sponsors

  • Friends of the Flint Memorial Library
  • North Reading High School Parents' Association
  • North Reading Book Discussion Club
  • Reading Co-operative Bank
  • The Savings Bank

Thank you to Steve DiFranza for designing the logo, Margarita Drozdoff, web designer, of Inkling Studios, Griffin Spencer for creating the brochure and bookmark, Brett Kunze for creating the READ posters.

 

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