Before the Ever After
by Jacqueline Woodson
His dad was a football star. Something is changing. He watches.
For you if
you have watched someone you love change and needed someone to put that in words you could actually hold
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ZJ's dad is a famous football player — the kind of dad other kids want. But something is changing. His dad is forgetting things, getting headaches, losing himself. Woodson tells this story in verse, which lets her hold grief and love in the same breath. This is a book about CTE — the brain damage that ends football careers and lives — told through the child who watches it happen to his hero. It is also a book about what it means to love someone who is disappearing. Woodson writes about Black family life with extraordinary warmth and refuses to let the illness be the only thing in the room.
Where This Book Lives
- Setting
- North America
- Voice
- Written by a North America author
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