Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls
Sam is 11 and he’s dying of leukaemia. He reckons he’ll be dead by the time you finish the book. This is his journal. We meet his cynical, adventurous best mate Felix from the hospital, his Mum, doing her best to hold it all together, his Dad, trying to pretend it’s not happening, his little sister Ella, sometimes jealous at the attention he’s getting.
And we meet Sam, full of interesting facts and full of profound questions that people don’t like asking. But he wants to know: why do kids die? what happens when you die? as well as – can he run up the down escalator?
This is brilliantly done. Sally Nicholls doesn’t flinch the difficulties. Through Sam’s journals and his lists and his questions, all brief and beautifully woven together, we travel with him, as he gradually changes his perspective, sometimes with a jolt, sometimes gently. We see the relationships round him shifting too. Wonderful Mrs Willis, the home teacher who lets him do explosions, coming less often, his Dad waking to reality and turning brilliant, his Mum learning to let go.
It seems that for decades children’s writers wanted to steer clear of death. Their Victorian predecessors, perhaps because infant mortality was too widespread to ignore, didn’t ignore it. We may find their approach sometimes uncomfortable, too mawkish or too religious, but collectively they acknowledged its existence and included it. Sometimes they did it brilliantly (how interesting it is to compare this book with George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind). So it’s a relief to find death emerging again in a book like this and being allowed to call in and say hello.
I love too the way Sally Nicholls opens a range of views: Mum is a churchgoer, Felix thinks that’s all rubbish, Granny believes in ghosts, at least she has smelled Grandad’s pipe when she was feeling low. The possibility of God existing is granted. There may be reasons behind tragic events that are not known to us. Sam may be 11, but has profound thoughts because actually 11 year-olds do have profound thoughts. He may be dying, but some days he can be happy and he can still throw an orc at Felix because he’s pissed off with him. And all the while his insights shine through; there’s an inner knowing that reveals his own answers to himself.
Who, then, is the book for? I found it in the library; one good place, because a child can select it for herself. As a gift to a child, or adult for that matter, who has a friend or family member who is or may be terminally ill it may bring joy (though that might seem a strange word) and peace, and understanding; some laughter too.
