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1David Small: Writer Who Speaks Through Pictures
"Stitches" is written to a very different audience than author David Small is used to. He has written and illustrated many books for children. Stitches is a darker book than say, "Princess Says Goodnight".
http://davidsmallbooks.com/bio.php
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2Setting: Detroit
The character, whose name is David Small (just like the author's), grew up in Detroit with his strange family. His dad worked at a hospital as an X-Ray Technician. His mom was a stay at home mom and she wasn't very loving. The “motor city” could be seen as a dark city with all the smoke stacks and factories. Its also one of the dangerous cities in the world ranking #2 on lists like Forbes and the FBI's. I don't think that the setting is very relevant to the story; it just adds dreariness and darkness to the storyline.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/the-10-most-dangerous-cities-in-america/239513/#slide10
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3Main Character: David...
Main Character: David
David starts off as a boy that doesn’t really know what’s going on. He’s scared for the most part. But all through the story, David doesn’t really listen to his parents. The only thing they ever say to him is negative so why bother to listen? As he gets older and finds that growth on his neck, he found he had cancer that his parents never told him that he had. He finally started to stand up for himself, until he lost his vocal cords during an operation. He learns a lot from his parents, especially his mother, and decides not to end up like her and her mother. At the end, David has a dream of his mother sweeping a long road leading to a psychiatric hospital telling him to follow. He knows that he will have a better life than that. -
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4Minor Characters
Mom: She comes off as a tough-to-love kind of person. She's very bitter and the only things that she has to say to her son, David, are negative. She's hesitant to get the growth of David's neck checked out and pushes it off until she can't anymore (the picture is talking about this). She does get nice when she think's David is going to die, but then he makes a great recovery after a surgery and the old bitter woman is back. David runs away at 16 and later in her life, when she's about to die, he comes and sees her and they both cannot talk because she has a tube down her throat and he lost his vocal cords during surgery. They just look at each other and she starts crying. She feels bad about the way she acted.
Dad: Dad's an X-Ray Technician and is barely home. David's family found out that he had a problem with his health early in his life but never told David thinking that they could fix it. Dad gave him radiation treatments, which in the long run only made things worse and nearly killed him. His dad is a little nicer than his mother, but David never really had any close connection with anyone in his family.
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5Plot
This graphic novel is about a boy who's family isn't very loving and once they find a growth on his neck they have to face the facts that they can't prevent him going to the doctor anymore. David (the main character) doesn't know that he has cancer, but the rest of his family does. After one surgery that gets nothing done, David's parents become nicer to him. It doesn't last long when after the second surgery David looks to make a healthy recovery, just without a voice, but the cancer is now gone. After he goes home, David is looking around his house and he finds a note that says he has cancer and his parents have been hiding it for this long. He decides to run away at age 16 and he starts to live a happy life. He started to live his dreams of being an artist and taught at a college. At the very end as I said when I described his mother, he and her made up just before she died. :)
http://stitches.davidsmallbooks.com/
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6Conflict: Man vs. Self
David has a lot of troubles with the people in his life which could be Man vs. Man. I told you before that he fought to get love from his mother and basically gave up trying until the day she died. They fought the most among all the other characters.
If I had to choose one person that he fought with most overall, I would say he fought with himself the most (Man vs. Self). He constantly had to face people telling him that he was basically a loser and would never amount to much. He started believing them and letting them walk all over him. Then he realized that his family lied to him about having cancer. He knew he had to fix his life and thats what he did. That's when he ran away and didn't have anyone bringing him down anymore.
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7Theme
I think David Small, the author, was trying to get the point of Childhood Abuse across and not every story ends badly. David, the character, fought through his parents and all the negative things that they did to him as a child and prevailed. He created a great life for himself. During his childhood, his parents sort of abused him since they gave him radiation treatments in their basement and they neglected his growth for awhile. If they would've acted quicker, they might have been able to save his vocal cords.
http://pc.brooklyn.cuny.edu/ABUSESUR.HTM
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8CONNECTION!
Text to Self Connection:
I have a friend that decided to drop out of school at age 16 and I don't know where she's currently living but I'm relating this back to my story about David leaving home at age 16. David had a legit reason to leave his house. His parents weren't taking very good care of him and he could do better on his own. Same goes for my friend. She's hardworking and can get by on her own. I just wish she stayed in school. David went on to be an Art Teacher. :) I believe she'll do good things in her life, too.