To begin this post, I thought I'd dip my toe uinto the waters of character change. In, "Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie," Steven's brother devlops luckemia. This changes Stevens point of view, and shakes up his whole entire world. He also homes to a realisation about hope, love, family, and the true meaning of being a man.
At the beggining of the book the relationship the two boys had were typical brothers. Jeffery adores Steven and wants to be like him in every way possible. But Steven gets easily annoyed by Jeffery and just wants to be left alone. Then, once Jeffery gets hurt, and his parents take him to the hospital they discover that he has luckemia. Once this happens Steven realises the impact that the situation is going to have on his life. At first, Steven tries to pretend that his poor bald-headed baby brother is fine and healthy when Steven is at school. But soon everyone knows about it, and that tmethod doesnt take effect anymore. Then Steven is very selfish and throws a pity party by letting himself get bad grades and only seeing the bad in the situation. But finally at the end of the book, Steven comes to the realisation that he needs to start to put others feeling into the situation first. Steven also had a new attitude about the lack of attention he was getting."This woman (his mom) had spent nearly half of her time with her son, prayi ng for him, watching over him (Jeffery), comforting him, handling all this overwhelming cancer stuff."
Steven made me think about how I would have reacted to a situation like that. Would I have shut myself out of the world? My mom has a friend that lost her father, and when this happened, her friend did similar things. She zoned out of class, told no one about it, and almost didn't graduate high school. She also would make bets with herself. For example, "If this paper lands in this trash can, then I will get a good grade on my next test. I missed! Well, no point in studing now!" It wasn't until collage that she got her act back together. She also expirenced pain when her baby died. For a year, she sat around with her dog and cried. When she got a new job she had her own office so she could go and cry in it when neccisary. But now she has three kids and is as happy as can be. And just like my mom's friend, it wan't until Steven realised that you're not going to get anywhere siting around feeling sorry for yourself that they felt better. Steven came to this realisatiion on the chapter, "Im a Man Now." Then, for possibly the first time since all this had started, i stopped feeling sorry for myself and thought of other people's situations."
I think the author wants the reader to know that hope is never lost. I know this is true because Steven was moping around and was miserable with his brother's death on the line 24/7, but then he got help. This helped him get through the process, and he was still able to be there for his brother. He also got his grade up and became friends with his crush, and his best friend became his girlfriend. Plus at the end the author says that when Steven waves to his brother he can spot a small bit of blond springing out of his little head. This is a bit of hope about Jeffery's condition. Hope also came in when we met Samantha, the girl Steven meets on a trip to the hospital with Jeffery. She has cancer too, and she tells Steven something that will benifit him forever. "Stay with your brother, Steven. Stay with him. No matter what."
A man is brave and kind and gentle. A man is good and cleaver. A man needs to be looked at as a hero. Steven was a lost boy throught the book, until the end. Not only did he stay by his brother side the whole time, but he also was a big help and didn't lose hope. Once he bacame a man, he realised that when he felt bad then his brother needed the confort most. Steven even missed his concert for the band just so he could be with his brother. In this book, Steven changed from a boy to a man
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