My Life as a Book

My Life as a Book is a middle grade fiction and humor novel written by Janet Tashjian and originally published in 2010. The first of 11 books in the My Life series, the novel is illustrated by Tashjian’s son, Jake. Tashjian uses humor and the illustrations to make the novel more approachable to young, reluctant readers. My Life as a Book earned the 2011 Bank Street – Children’s Book of the Year award.

This guide utilizes the 2010 Square Fish (Macmillan) version of the novel.

Plot Summary

My Life as a Book is narrated by its 12-year-old protagonist, Derek Fallon. Derek lives in California with his mom, dad, and dog, Bodi. His summer is about to begin, and he’s looking forward to spending his days relaxing, causing mischief, and hanging out with his dog and best friend, Matt. Meanwhile, a mystery begins to unfold when Derek finds an old newspaper in the attic indicating the drowning of a girl in Martha’s Vineyard. Derek asks his mother why she has the newspaper, and she refuses to discuss it, so Derek resolves to investigate the occurrence.

Derek’s visions of an easygoing summer of adventure and mystery are dashed, however, when he finds out that his teacher, Ms. Williams, is assigning a summer reading list. Everyone in the class must read three books from the list and write a report on each one. Although Derek has been labeled a reluctant reader by his teacher, tutor, and parents, he insists that he likes to read but prefers comic books instead. Derek is a passionate illustrator like his father and holds drawing in high precedence over reading. In addition, Derek knows a lot about caring for animals, as his mother is a veterinarian. To appease his teacher and parents’ concerns about his lack of interest in English, Derek devised a system for remembering words: He draws stick-figure illustrations acting out the words. However, this strategy doesn’t inspire him to read more; instead, it inspires him to draw more.

Derek spends the last few days of the school year in class and otherwise hangs out with his friend Matt at the mall, in the yard, or skateboarding. On the last day of school, Derek is relieved and excited for it to be over. He dreads the thought of summer reading, but Ms. Williams hands him a book that she annotated specifically for him. It includes prompts and questions to get Derek thinking and visualizing what he’s reading. It takes time for him to feel inclined to read the book, but by the end of the summer, he manages to finish it.

A girl in Derek’s class, Carly, is smart and seems to be good at everything. She volunteers to take home the class pet, a hedgehog named Ginger, for the summer. Meanwhile, Derek starts to do his own research on the newspaper article and finds out that the name of the girl who drowned was Susan James, and she was only a teenager at the time.

Derek pushes his parents to tell him about Susan, and finally his mother gives in when she finds him on the roof playing croquet with the satellite dish. She tells Derek everything she knows about the incident. Susan was babysitting Derek one day when he was two years old and foolishly decided to take him to South Beach in Martha’s Vineyard, despite being instructed to stay home. According to Susan’s mother, Derek wandered into the water, and when Susan went in to save him, the riptide pulled her out and she drowned. When Derek hears this information, which later turns out to be inaccurate, he’s overcome with guilt and a feeling of responsibility. He wonders why Susan chose to save him and whether he’s obligated to become a great person as a result.

Derek regularly visits Susan’s memorial website and one day bravely posts his own comment revealing that he’s the child from the day Susan died. At the same time, Derek makes a new friend, a monkey named Pedro, who is a helper for a boy named Michael. Derek later befriends Michael, too, after he shows Derek how to animate his drawings and bring them to life. Derek reluctantly starts Learning Camp, which goes for the rest of the summer and is a way for Derek’s parents to keep him out of trouble and (they hope) help him learn to read. Carly is attending Learning Camp, too, which Derek finds off-putting at first, but the two soon begin to bond.

On Derek’s first day of Learning Camp, he’s surprised to find that his counsellor (Margot) is fun and has good ideas. Margot understands Derek’s reluctance to read novels without pictures and gives him some advice that he takes forward with him: She tells him to visualize the stories as if they’re movies. Margot begins reading a chapter out of her book, asking Derek to visualize the setting and imagine what the characters are feeling. Derek finds the process extremely helpful and uses it to finish the novel assigned by Ms. Williams. While Derek is at Learning Camp, Matt is on vacation on the East Coast. His family plans to stop at Martha’s Vineyard on their trip, and Derek is jealous that Matt gets to see the place where Susan died. Although Derek can’t go with Matt, he has the idea to convince his mother to take him to visit his grandma in Boston and stop at Martha’s Vineyard on their way back.

Derek emails his grandma, who’s excited to hear from him and expresses how much she misses the family. In addition, Derek makes a pivotal discovery about his drawings when he finds that he can flip through them like a flipbook. They animate a story of his summer. This becomes another way that Derek overcomes his aversion to reading.

One day after camp, Derek’s mom drops Carly off at her house, and they decide to go inside for a visit. Derek finds out that Carly has created a burglar heist maze out of fishing line in her basement and is amazed. He didn’t realize Carly could be fun, and the two spend the afternoon playing together. Derek receives an email from Susan’s mother, Madeline, thanking him for his post on the website. It pulls him further into the mystery of Susan, and he can’t wait to go to Martha’s Vineyard and find out more. Derek convinces his mother by guilting her over his grandma’s loneliness, and she agrees that the family will head there for a visit. Before they leave, Derek does a few more searches and finds out that a girl named Lauren was with Susan the day she died—and that Lauren still lives in Martha’s Vineyard.

The family arrives at Grandma’s house, and she’s happy to see everyone, especially Derek. She dotes on him and spoils him, even reading to him while he sits on her lap. Derek loves his grandma dearly and enjoys every minute he spends with her. After a few days of visiting, the family heads to Martha’s Vineyard. Derek’s mother hopes that doing so will help Derek move on from the whole event. As they drive around the island, Derek spots the place where Lauren works and asks to go in. He gets up the courage to talk to Lauren (on his second attempt) and tells her who he is. Lauren reveals that Susan took Derek to the beach because she was hoping to meet a boy there. She left Derek alone, and Lauren ended up watching him instead. After Susan returned from hanging out with the boy, she was in a state of ecstasy and dove into the ocean. She was quickly pulled out by the riptide and drowned, and Derek didn’t wander into the water until much later. Furthermore, Bodi—not Susan—saved Derek. Lauren gives Derek a leather necklace with feathers and shells on it before he leaves.

Derek is relieved that his guilt is unnecessary, but he’s still sad for Susan. Derek’s mother reacts with anger over Susan’s mother, Madeline, lying to her for years about Susan being a hero and Derek being involved in her death. When Derek’s mother takes the family to go to confront Madeline, however, she sees how grief-stricken Madeline still is, so she refrains from accusing her of lying. Instead, they spend the afternoon talking about Susan and her many achievements and good qualities. Derek is proud of his mom for making a sacrifice for Madeline in this moment. After visiting Madeline, Derek decides that everyone should stop at the beach where Susan died before they leave. His parents agree, and they walk along the beach, staring into the ocean. He reflects on Susan before saying goodbye to her. Later, at Lambert Cove, Derek’s mother receives a phone call and hears that the pet hedgehog has died. Carly is distraught. Derek takes the phone and listens to Carly as she cries. He assures her that it’s not her fault and she did nothing wrong—the same assurance he needed all summer about Susan.

When Derek arrives back home, he’s almost immediately greeted by Matt. The two of them decide to visit Carly and help her plant flowers for the hedgehog, and they spend the rest of the day playing in the maze together. Derek’s last day of Learning Camp arrives, and Derek spends it visualizing as Margot reads, before participating in a water balloon fight.

Before school begins, Derek goes to visit Michael again, who shows him a video of Pedro training to become a helper. Derek realizes that with persistence and effort, Pedro learned tasks that he couldn’t normally complete. He wonders if the same is true for him when it comes to reading. Derek reaches an understanding about the nature of learning and its evolution throughout one’s lifetime. On his first day of school, Derek gives his book report in the form of an animation, which Michael helped him prepare. Derek drew out the book’s plot, setting, and characters and demonstrated his knowledge of the story. He thinks about how his life is like a story and looks back on all the other life stories he has been part of this summer.