By Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes
Illustrated by: Scott Magoon
Schneider Family Book Award
Rescue, Jessica, and Patrick
“A way forward, together - one step at a time.”
The main theme of this book is overcoming adversity, specifically a disability. The authors are both survivors of the Boston Marathon Bombings that occurred in 2013. They both suffered losing limbs from the horrific act, but Jessica lost both her legs. The illustrator as well was affected by the event by being injured physically. As the backbone to this book, the writers incorporated their struggles physically and psychologically in having to relearn how to walk and be willing to have to have help. With this, their experience supports that they are telling a story from their own experience. #OwnVoice
I believe that this story's theme may be difficult for some readers. Yes we can talk about how people may lose limbs, have to struggle physically to regain strength, and endure hardships to overcome the new struggle, but I don’t know if they can actually grasp that. If students haven’t gone through it themselves, how can we express the hardships that the main character had to go through?
I think this book allows readers to develop a connection to Rescue and Jessica separately before they join together to overcome obstacles. Rescue was denied of being a seeing eye service dog and was then trained to be a service dog.
“Service dogs work beside their partners, instead of in front of them.”
Jessica had to go through two separate operations to remove both of her legs. I don’t know how I would emotionally handle knowing that I would have to wake up from different surgeries with one less limb. Especially legs, which gives someone the freedom to walk, run, and do other things independently. It seems that the constant word of “depend on” repeated and shown in varying ways of how Jessica needed to adapt to having to use different things to be more independent.
Scott Magoon, the illustrator, not only supported the theme through visuals, but described how he used his illustrations to incorporate symbolism to help younger readers understand obstacles and hardships both Rescue and Jessica had to go through. One specific page I want to look at that Scott Magoon describes in an article is of Rescue and Jessica laying on her hospital bed after her second leg was amputated. Magoon stated his illustrative purposefulness to include stars in the “night sky” at the hospital. I totally underread this page. I quickly saw the night sky images, but did not analyze the imagery. A mistake. One that I am glad I read more details on to share Scott Magoon’s creativity in allowing the readers to understand what Jessica had to go through after a tragic event. Magoon included the constellation of Sirius. The Sirius constellation is also known as the Dog Star. The importance of the Sirius constellation is that it is seen in the sky all over the world and is used for navigation. How does this relate to the text on the page?
Well let’s think about that. Jessica just went through her second operation to lose her other leg. She has learned how to adapt to having one prosthetic leg and use other resources such as a wheelchair and Rescue to do certain things. To lose another leg brings another obstacle. More physical therapy. More practice in building strength. The navigation symbolism means that from that night both her and Rescue will have to overcome more struggles before seeing new changes in her life. It is like Rescue’s presence is calming in knowing that as a service dog, the job and opportunities for them both to learn together is achievable.
Critical Literacy
With this children's book, I think a lot of discussion in terms of problem posing questions can allow students to individually reflect on Rescue and Jessica's journey and growth together. One activity that a teacher can use to help students require critical literacy is to do a switch activity. The switch activity primarily is to have the main character Jessica either become non-disabled or disabled in another way. For example, if Jessica became blind or lost her arms from the Boston Bombing incident instead of her legs. How would this change Rescue's role with Jessica? What other type of obstacles would Jessica have in recovery? How does this then demonstrate how overcoming adversity or acceptance of diversity bring new meaning to the book?
References
Kensky, J. & Downes, P. ( ). Rescue and Jessica.
Magoon, S. (2018).DOG STARS: symbols in rescue & jessica a life-changing friendship. Retrieved from https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2018/04/02/dog-stars-symbols-in-rescue-jessica-a-life-changing-friendship-by-scott-magoon/
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