Reviewed by Aleesah Darlinson
In I Am Jack , Jack battled bullies at his school and won. In Super Jack, Jack faced the trails of a newly blended family. Now, in Always Jack, our hero faces a challenge bigger than he's ever faced before.
Nanna is older and wobblier than ever. Jack is experiencing strange emotions whenever he sees his best friend Anna. Then there's mum and Rob's impending wedding, which seems to be taking over the world.
But these entire woes pale into insignificance when mum delivers the news that she has breast cancer. As usual, Jack sums it up incredibly succinctly: ‘I look up at him. It's hard to speak. 'But it's cancer Rob.’ I can't live without mum. None of us can love without mum.'
But while mum's illness makes Jack re-evaluate aspects of his life, it doesn't dominate the narrative. This is the skill in Gervay's storytelling: to encapsulate the realism of a young boy's life, yet still deal with big issues such as cancer. Death. Divorce, grandparents, sibling rivalry, friendships, refugees and the Vietnam War.
How does Gervay deal with so many issues in one relatively short children's book? The answer is that she treads lightly. Jack is Gervay's vehicle for spreading words of wisdom but at no time does she preach. Eternally, Jack and his story remain wholly believable. Readers will not only empathise with Jack but love his sensitive introspection and his wisecracks designed to alternately entertain and annoy his family.
At its heart, Always Jack is a powerful tool for providing comfort to children of cancer sufferers and for educating the uninitiated. More than that, it's a true Australian story that could happen to any of us. And as a multiple breast cancer sufferer and survivor herself, no one understands better than Gervay what it's like to battle – and overcome – the disease.
Part survival manual, part therapy, part autobiography, part fiction, Always Jack succeeds in distilling a complex medical conditions for young readers to digest.
‘Mum is in her white sack when she waves us over. 'I've organised that you kids can have a quick look into the radiation treatment room.’ It is super quick but it's interesting. Reminds me of a laboratory. There's a major X-ray machine like a big metal right angle hanging over a metal bed.'
As Gervay says, she wrote Always Jack, ‘for families who go through cancer to share the journey; and to invite other kids and community to join in.’
The illustrations sprinkled through the book, by Sydney Morning Herald cartoonist Cathy Wilcox, are as delightful and entertaining as Jack himself. Beautiful, sad, funny – Always Jack will make you laugh and make you cry. Guaranteed. Carrying the NSW Cancer Council's stamp of approval, Jack's story will stay with readers always.
