Sun & Spoon

Title: Sun & Spoon

Author: Kevin Henkes

Publisher & Publication Date: Greenwillow Books, 1997

Genre:

Grade Level: 4-6

Summary: Spoon Gilmore is a ten year old boy who is dealing with the sudden loss of his paternal grandmother. The book begins with Spoon trying to figure out what object he can find of his grandmother's that he could keep to remember her. He has dreams about her almost every night, good ones not bad ones. He has an older brother, who is on vacation with the maternal grandmother, and a younger sister who always wants to tag along with Spoon. In the first part of the novel, Spoon decides he wants to go to his grandfather's house and look around for something that will make him think of his grandmother. He decided he did not want a picture, because he hates pictures of himself, so a picture wouldn't be enough to satisfy his personal item. While he is at his grandfather's he helps clean out the garage, but takes a few trips to the bathroom so he can look around the house. He figures out that he wants the deck of cards his grandmother used to play triple solitaire with because they have suns on them and she had collected suns. They seemed like they would be the perfect item to remember her by, so he takes them without telling his grandfather. Later he finds out that his grandfather is stressed because he can't find the playing cards. Spoon decides to return the cards without telling anyone and then he finally breaks down and tells his grandfather what happened. His grandfather in return gives Spoon a picture of his grandmother when she was about ten years old and also shows him a tracing of her hand that she did. With the tracing she wrote "M always stands for Martha" (Martha was her name). At first Spoon didn't understand what that meant, but later he figured it out. He looked at his sister's hand and then at his and his parents and realized that the letter "M" is in the markings on all of their hands. He then decides that the marking of the "M" will be the thing to help him remember his grandmother.

Response: This was a sad and touching book. I could relate to Spoon because I lost my grandmother and it was very hard on me. At first I was a bit shocked by the story, then I realized that this is a topic that has to be covered with young children. I think the story was a bit choppy, but overall it was a good book. Henkes did a good job with this novel, even though I think he is stronger in writing picture books because they can be more choppy than novels. Some parts of the story were hard to follow, but after I re-read them a couple of times I understood what was going on. The book made me feel sad. I felt sad for Spoon, and sad in general because it was talking about death. I cannot think of any other books I have read that relate to this one. I am sure I have, but I just can't think of any that make me automatically connect one to the other.

Teaching Ideas: This is a great book to use with the coping area in the NC Stardard Course of Study Health section. The book deals with a death of a close loved one and shows how well the child handles with coping. A teaching idea that I would incorporate into my classroom would be to have an open discussion about the topic, coping with loss. Then I would read the novel out loud to my students and ask questions as I read. After I finished reading the book I would have my students talk about any deaths they have experienced (only if they are willing to do so) and then ask them to talk about how they coped with the death. Once everyone who wanted to share was done, I would have all my students write a journal entry either about the book or about the death that they had to cope with (something more personal so some students might not want to write on this topic, so give options).