Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson

"The first time you forgot my name

feels like yesterday. Feels like an hour ago.

Feels like I blink and you forgetting

is right there in front of me."

We have a new adult television series (based on a book by Brendan Cowell) here in Australia called Plum and this program covers the same issue as Before the Ever After of brain injuries to football players. In the book by Jacqueline Woodson it is American Football and Plum is all about Rugby League but really the consequence of constant head injuries is the same - an acquired brain injury. 

ZJ is watching his football dad fall apart. Dad visits so many doctors but no one seems to know what is wrong and when they do offer a diagnosis none of their medicines work and worse some make his dad's behaviour even more erratic. 

"I feel like someone's holding us,
keeping us from getting back to where we were before
and keeping us from the next place too."

"There's not a name for the way

Daddy's brain works now.

The way he forgets little things like

the importance of wearing a coat outside

on a cold day. There's not a name

for the way I catch him crying

looking around the living room like

it's his first time seeing it."

This book is a MUST add to your library especially a High School library. Listen to Colby Sharp talking about this book. I know nothing about American football but that did not take away from my appreciation of this important story. Like me, Colby loved the friends in this book. I just wanted to thank and hug Ollie, Darry and Daniel. They are so supportive of ZJ and also beautiful in the way they relate to his dad.

You know – I think I thought I was writing Before The Ever After to talk about head injuries and loss. But in the end, it became a book about friendship and family and love. So I guess I wrote because that’s what I wanted to talk about here. ZJ has some really cool friends. It was so fun putting them on the page. Jacqueline Woodson

Before the Ever After is a verse novel and you know I love this form. The publisher site suggested age nine, but I think this book will better suit mature readers aged 10+. 

A poignant and achingly beautiful narrative shedding light on the price of a violent sport. Kirkus star review

Here is the publisher blurb: For as long as ZJ can remember, his dad has always been everyone's hero: a pro football superstar, a beloved member of the neighbourhood and a really, really great dad. But there's something not right about ZJ's dad these days. He's having trouble remembering things, seems to be angry all the time and is starting to forget ZJ's name. Bit by bit, ZJ has to face this new reality that his family can't keep holding on to his dad's glory days. As his dad begins to have more bad than good days, will they ever find happiness again?

In 2018 Jacqueline Woodson won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international award for children’s and young adult literature, and in 2020 she won the Hans Christian Andersen Award (IBBY) an international award for lifetime achievement in children’s literature.