My Life as a Book

Derek is at home with his father on Saturday, browsing the internet. He decides to look up Susan James and comes across her memorial page. Derek spends over an hour reading the entries of people who miss her, even a decade later. It shocks him to realize that he spent such a long time reading, but even more, he feels mounting guilt knowing that Susan saved him and that so many people became sad because of her death. Derek bravely decides to submit his own entry on the page, asking Susan why she chose to save him, thanking her, and hoping that he can “be a normal kid who makes a lot of mistakes” (98) instead of feeling like he needs to be “some guy who stops wars or creates new energy sources just because” (97) she saved him.

Derek makes a bargain with Margot to have his group skip Fraction Friday if he reads a chapter of a book from his summer reading list. Derek manages to get through half a chapter, picturing each detail as vividly as possible and imagining the characters. Afterward, he picks up his vocabulary sketchbook and flips through it, realizing that it looks very much like a story or movie of his summer, “like one of those old flip-o-ramas” (100).