Literature circle/ nonfiction article blog

       Before I started reading After Ever After I wanted to guide my learning by using an essential questions. For instance the question that I asked was “What will happen if Jeff were to detach himself from Tad?” Well in the book Tad is Jeffery’s best friend, they both were cancer survivors until Tad, unfortunately, got cancer again. He ends up passing away and Jeff’s reaction connected to my EQ. Afterwards I found an article that connected to my book. “At 12, a cancer veteran serves others, becomes an author” in the article, Peter Zucca, a kid who was a cancer survivor had to get his leg amputated and his life changed. Just like in the article Jeff went through a big life change after his best friend died of cancer. The outcome that both Jeffrey from After Ever After and Peter from “At 12, a cancer veteran serves others, becomes an author” was that they decided that they were going to do something that was going to change other people's lives.

        Both in the article and in the book there is a common challenge that is being faced, cancer. Although cancer get’s interpreted differently. For instance in the book cancer was introduced as a negative thing, which it is, but Jeffrey would see no type of positivity on being a cancer survivor. In the book it states, “ The funny thing is, the treatment is nothing compared to what happens after you're ‘cured’. And the most annoying thing in the world: they tell you how lucky you are to be cured, like you've escaped a death sentence all it's own. But being a cancer survivor can be a life sentence all it's own.” Jeff doesn't see the fact that he survived cancer is a blessing. He also hates the fact that everyone pities him. In the other hand Peter actually saw cancer as a way to be more confident with himself. In the article it states, “Yet Peter emerged determined, a superhero of sorts, hence the name of his nonprofit, the Peter Powerhouse Foundation, established a year ago with his mother, Dawn as president.” Peter always tried to look on the bright side after his illness.

          But the same outcome ended up happening at the end. For instance Jeffrey decided that he was going to do a bike race or cancer ride as he calls it to raise money for cancer patients. Peter as well  made a foundation to raise money for kids with cancer. Cancer is something that is some what similar throughout out the patients because in these both scenarios the both of them had a fight or flight option, they both addressed it a different way but had the same result in finding a way to help out.  Even though they both had suffered from cancer and both had a different view of the cancer and they both ended with the same result, defeating cancer. It is something that is difficult to understand specially being a young child, they both wanted to make a difference at the end, a way to help others, to find the good in the bad.


Snyder, Susan . "At 12, a cancer veteran serves others, becomes an author." Newsela | At 12, a cancer veteran serves others, becomes an author. N.p., 8 Sept. 2015. Web. 12 May 2017.


Sonnenblick, Jordan, and Marijka Kostiw. After ever after. New York: Scholastic, 2014. Print.