Module 9 - The Body of Christopher Creed

Plum-Occi, C. (2000).  The body of Christopher Creed.  San Diego: Harcourt.

Summary: 

Torey is a high school student with a seemingly perfect life in a ‘perfect’ suburb.  When a classmate named Christopher Creed,who has always been somewhat ostracized, goes missing, Torey’s life and the suburb change.  As people take sides on whether or not Christopher is dead, Torey finds himself involved with Ali and Bo, two students who he typically would not hang out with.  As the three of them try to find out what happened to Christopher, they discover things about his family that were not quite right.  Torey learns that Ali is having a difficult time at home that is causing her behavior to drastically change.  He also that Bo, a kid from the wrong side of town who has been in trouble a great deal, has a challenging home life.  He also discovers Bo’s good points.  The story begins with Torey admitting he spent some time in a psychiatric hospital before leaving town and going to boarding school.  He then proceeds to tell the story, and the reader sees what led up to the hospitalization and boarding school.  The story’s ending manages to answer all the questions the reader has throughout the book.

My Impression:

 I loved the psychological aspects of this book.  It looks at the home lives of adolescents and shows how much it influences them.   Torey is somewhat naïve about what his classmate’s deal with at home, and being exposed to different things changes his thinking, and his behavior.  As he searches for answers to Christopher’s disappearance, he learns about himself and the outside world.  When he is traumatized towards the end of the book, he begins the process of putting all the things he has learned together in a way that makes sense.  His family provides a lot of support for him, and even his friends at times, and this allows the reader to see a healthy family.

Library Usage:

This is a great book to use for discussions on families and how they influence us.  It can lead into a discussion about what you want to take from your family, and ways you want to be different from your family.  As a social worker, I could see using this book with patients who come from those ‘dysfunctional’ families that are not overtly abnormal.  Sometimes children have a difficult time knowing what is not normal when it is subtle.  As the book mentions, this can be the most difficult type of ‘abuse’ to deal with.

Review:

Christopher was the weirdo everybody picked on, the troubled soul no one bothered to befriend. When Christopher disappeared, some pointed to evidence that he simply left town, but others decided he had been murdered. The mystery of Christopher's disappearance is never solved, but several lives are irrevocably damaged in the aftermath. Torey tells the story a year later in a voice that is fresh and real, alternately humorous and devastatingly perceptive. He has learned that you should not judge anyone before making an effort to understand his or her situation. Though action and suspense abound, the book's highlights are its character studies. Even minor characters are well drawn, and the town itself becomes a character with a distinct personality. Christopher himself, although he disappeared before the book's beginning, endears himself to readers as he is painted as a boy to be pitied but also to be admired.

The body of Christopher Creed (Book Review). (2000). Book Report, 19(3), 61.