Tani Popoola
See you at Harry's by Jo Knowles
Being emotionally invested in a fictional story really hits hard. See you at Harry’s by Jo Knowles is a beautiful story about a 12-year old girl named Fern who lives with her Mom and Dad who own an ice cream company. Her brothers Holden, 14, and Charlie, 3, and sister Sara, 18, make a huge impact in how she lives her life.
Jo Knowles wrote this book based on her life. She was growing up with family restaurant that happened to be an ice cream factory called Keller’s where she happened to serve a lot of different celebrities. In 2006, she released her first novel to Candlewick Press called Lessons from a Dead Girl. In college she took a literary course which helped her on her course to be an author. Some other books she wrote are Pearl, Jumping off Swings, Read Between the Lines and Living with Jacky Chan.
Their family isn’t the normal cookie cutter suburban living family. For one, all the children are named after characters in one of their mom’s favorite books. Fern, who is named after a character from Charlotte’s Web, is simple and is a normal sixth grader who as a crush on her best friend Random Smith. Weird name right? Holden is named after his mom’s favorite book of all time, Catcher in the Rye and is starting high school with new experiences. He’s homosexual and unhappy with the way his family addresses it and only speaks to Fern about his problems. Charlie was named after Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory being he is a courageous and playful for a three year old. Sara is taking a gap year after high school to help her parents at their restaurant. She is also named after someone very close to her parents heart, “The little princess.” When she was younger that is what she acted like.
One day tragedy occurred. Fern was watching her brother and he hit his head on the ground. They thought everything was fine because he went to sleep fine and he was playing with them before he went to bed. The next morning he didn’t wake up. Fern blamed herself everyday for the death of her brother. Even though it wasn’t technically her fault, she felt responsible for her brother dying.
When you first look at this book, you would think that it would be about a milkshake company that was failing and they needed to revive it. This is only based on what the cover makes the book seems about. This is why the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is relevant to not only people but books. This book uncovers what true love really is about. Not only the love you feel with a boyfriend or girlfriend or wife and husband but the family type love. The unconditional love that you are supposed to have for your family is what this book really teaches about. Mother to children relationships and sibling to sibling type of relationship. Best friend relationships are very prominent in this story as well between Fern and her best friend Random Smith.
Reading this book could possibly make you cry hysterically like a baby because I did and I usually am not a crier. So get the tissues ready for this page turning great read.