To say Alex has had it rough is an understatement. His father’s gone, his mother is struggling with addiction, and he’s now living with an aunt and uncle who are less than excited to have him. Almost everyone treats him as though he doesn’t matter at all, as though he’s nothing. So when a kid at school actually tells him he’s nothing, Alex snaps, and gets violent. Fortunately, his social worker is able to pull some strings and get him a job at a nursing home for the summer rather than being sent to juvie. There he meets two people who will help him see his life in a very different way. The most important of these is Josey, the 107-year-old Holocaust survivor who stopped bothering to talk years ago. Against all odds, Josey and Alex form a bond, and so Josey decides that Alex is worth telling his life story to. Day by day, as Alex comes to his room with meals or just to visit, Josey parcels out his tale of being a young Jewish man in Germany: how he fell in love with a girl and learned to sew, and how that same girl and his sewing skills would save his life in the face of unimaginable losses. And then there’s Maya-Jade, the granddaughter of one of the residents with an overblown sense of importance. If Alex feels like he’s nothing, Maya-Jade feels like she’s all that. Unlike Alex, she believes that people care about what she thinks, and that she can make a difference. With the help of both Josey and Maya-Jade, Alex is ultimately able to appreciate the fact that he, too, does matter. And that he can also make a difference — a good difference — in the world. And with this new awareness, he is finally able to rise to the occasion of his own life.
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Fiction
Not Nothing
- From the Publisher
September 1, 2023
Discussion Questions
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