The 9:09 Project
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A thoughtful exploration about finding oneself, learning to hope after loss, and recognizing the role that family, friends, and even strangers can play in the healing process if you are open and willing to share your experience with others.
It has been two years since his mom’s death, and Jamison, his dad, and his younger sister seem to be coping, but they’ve been dealing with their loss separately and in different ways. When Jamison almost forgets the date of his mother's birthday, he worries that his memory of her is slipping away. To help make sense of the passing of time, he picks up his camera—the Nikon his mother gave to him.
Jamison begins to take photos of ordinary people on the street, at the same time and place each night. As he focuses his lens on the random people who cross his path, Jamison begins to see the world in a deeper way. His endeavor turns into a school project, and then into something more. Along with his new outlook, Jamison forges new and unexpected friendships at school. But more importantly, he’s able to revive the memory of his mother, and to connect with his father and younger sister once again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two years after losing his mother to cancer, a Californian teenager channels his grief and loneliness into creative pursuits in this affecting literary offering from Parsons (Road Rash). When 17-year-old Jamison Deaver almost forgets his late mother's birthday, he worries that he's losing his memory of her, and embarks on a memorializing photography project. Using a Nikon she gave him, he takes pictures every evening at 9:09 p.m.—the time of her death—of the street corner he could see from her hospital room window. Some days, he photographs an empty intersection, but most days, there are people, and Jamison, who has felt extreme loneliness since her death, comforts himself by imagining these strangers' lives. His newfound hobby also helps him reconnect with his younger fashionista sister, Ollie, and their withdrawn father. Despite the welcome kinship, though, Jamison struggles to navigate his personal project's unexpected popularity after his best friend builds him a photography website. Utilizing intimately rendered characters and introspective dialogue, Bell crafts a character-driven work that celebrates the healing power of connection and creativity, encouraging readers to take a closer look at the world around them. Characters cue as white. Ages 12–up.
