Eight Days
Eight Days
Carl got the call this morning. He didn’t open the hardware store, no sign saying Gone Fishing, or Be Back in Five, or calling in Eduardo or nothing.
I didn’t go to school. Who cares, there’s only a few days left. Exams are done. All we’d be doing is make-work projects, signing yearbooks, blowing up the chemistry lab with an old timey volcano competition, and the parking lot picnic for the Valley Park Middle School grade eight class. I wanted to go to that.
The call came in at 5:23 am. Carl woke me up and told me and then couldn’t say much else. He gets like that. He’s not a talker at the best of times. “Later,” he said, “I promise, later. Please, Samantha, later.” He went to the kitchen and I went back to the pullout bed. That was hours ago.
It was official.
His daughter, my mother, was dead. She died at 11:20 last night. There will be an autopsy, an inquiry, depending.
My mother is dead.
I don’t know what to do. How to be. What to say.
I don’t understand.
Everything is upside down.
None of it makes any sense.
I thought my Mama died ten years ago.
Sami Stanic is a 14-year-old who has just finished grade eight when she gets the news that her mother has passed away. She’s thought her mother had been dead for years and so the revelation is upsetting, to say the least. Granddad Carl insists on going to Chicago to retrieve his daughter’s body and find out what happened. Sami, Carl and neighbour Aggie set out from Toronto on an eight day journey which ends up changing all of them in ways they had never anticipated.
Sami is a protagonist who will make young adult readers alternatively laugh and cry. She is determined to solve the mystery of what happened to her mother and bring her ashes back to Toronto. In fact, resolve is a cornerstone of Sami’s personality, and one of her key life goals is to “Be Useful” (My Life Chart, p. 10). In fact, she goes out of her way to be strong and resilient and to help everyone around her. She mentions several times in the novel that she doesn’t cry, and, near the book’s end when she actually does break down, readers begin to see the real girl under the tough façade. For many years, Sami hasn’t dealt with her feelings, preferring to swallow them in the guise of helping others. This covers up her worry that she’s never been ‘good enough’. She feels abandoned by her mother and by friends in earlier grades at school. She lives with the fear that Granddad Carl will also decide he doesn’t need her. And so Sami tries to be indispensable.
Granddad Carl has a tough exterior. A man of very few words, he doesn’t appreciate the feeling that ‘foreigners’ have taken over his apartment building and his area of Toronto. Traumatic events in his life led him to alcohol, and, as the story opens, readers learn of his efforts to rid himself of addiction by attending AA and doing everything in his power to stay sober. “Indispensable” Sami reads to him from AA literature and accompanies him to meetings just to be sure he stays on track. And yet Carl is also to be admired since he acted quickly to take in Sami at the age of four when his daughter could no longer care for her child. In his way, Carl seems to be doing his best.
Neighbour Aggie adds to the humour of the book with her incessant talk of cosmetics and the need to take her wigs with her on the eight day trek to Chicago. Her ability to distract the border guards is one of the humorous highlights of the book. Friends Nilofer and Tarek and their family also add interest to the novel, and Tarek and Sami’s relationship moves from that of ‘best friends’ to something which appears deeper and more lasting.
Author Teresa Toten deals with death in the book, but, while the death of Sami’s mother is the impetus for the story, it does not take over the plot. The family brings the mother’s ashes back to Toronto and seemingly everyone in the building arrives to pay their respects. The rituals surrounding death vary from one religion and culture to another, but this mini United Nations manages to come together and support Carl and Sami despite Carl’s earlier misgivings about his ‘foreign’ neighbours. Clearly there is strength in community, and both Carl and Sami are the beneficiaries of this when they need it most.
Another theme of the novel centres on the importance of self-care. Sami is so insistent on looking after others that she forgets to look after herself and her own mental well-being. She must deal with many secrets from her mother’s life and death, and the truth is not easy for her. However, in this coming-of-age novel, Sami leans important lessons about home and family and how feelings of safety and security are vital and may come from unexpected people and places.
Eight Days is written with a younger audience in mind, and Toten’s characters are relatable to readers in late elementary school and early high school. While nearly 300 pages may seem overwhelming to some younger readers, the book divides neatly into eight large sections, one for each day of the Toronto to Chicago mission. Within each day, there are several chapters, and so the story can be read in smaller pieces by readers with less experience.
Teresa Toten is the author of several books for young adults and has won many prizes, including the Governor General’s Literary Award. Eight Days will both entertain and enlighten her many fans and readers.
Ann Ketcheson, a retired teacher-librarian and high school teacher of English and French, lives in Ottawa, Ontario.