Atkins, Catherine. (1999). When Jeff comes home. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. ISBN: 0-399-23366- 0. p. 231
Genre: Fiction, Child Abuse
Interest Age: 15+
Curriculum: NA
Reader’s Annotation
Jeff was kidnapped when he was 14. Two and a half years later he is returned and must come to terms with his abduction as well as try to be something he no longer is: a normal teenager.
Plot Summary
When Jeff was 14, he was kidnapped from a highway rest stop. His friends and family never knew what happen to Jeff. To them, he simply disappeared without a trace. Two and a half years later, Jeff is unceremoniously released by his captor. Jeff is finally home, but home is not the same and neither is he. The police and the FBI want Jeff’s help to find “Ray”, the man who abducted Jeff. Jeff’s father wants him to get back to his old life and forget the last 2 ½ years. All anyone wants to know is if he was molested. All Jeff wants is for everyone to leave him alone.
When Jeff Comes Home is a gut wrenching story of the emotional, psychological, and physical scars left by the brutal crime of child abuse. Jeff struggles with feelings of terror, shame, embarrassment, and anger as he tries to fit back into his old life. His family and friends want Jeff to feel safe, to feel normal again but no one (most of all Jeff himself) is fully prepared to deal with what actually happened to Jeff.
Critical Review
Catherine Atkins, although writing specifically for a YA audience, pulls few punches in showing the effects child abuse has on not only its victims but the family and friends of those victims. When Jeff Comes Home is not so much a story of the abuse itself (thankfully, the reader only gets quick glimpses of Jeff’s ordeal through flashbacks) but of the aftermath and the long term effects of the abuse.
Overcome by feelings of guilt, shame, anger, and embarrassment, Jeff can barely think about the trauma he has gone through let alone discuss what happened openly. His friends and family only want to help him return to a normal life but Jeff’s entire perception of himself and the world were so violently torn apart he is left feeling alone and unable to relate anyone he used to know.
Atkins focuses on the emotional and psychological conflict which Jeff goes through as he struggles to adjust to the life he once knew. Jeff says very little, but for every word Jeff says or hears, there is a whirlwind of painful memories and feelings that are storming inside of him. With painful precision, Atkins makes the reader feel every emotion, see every detail, and relieve every memory Jeff does. Atkins shows how child abuse wholly destroys the victims’ understanding of love, family, closeness, and self worth.
When Jeff Comes Home is by no means an easy read. The healing process is neither fast nor simple and can be incredibly painful for all who are involved. However, as brutal and painful the experience can be, Atkins ultimately shows that there is hope for healing.
Author Info
Catherine Atkins was born in San Francisco, CA. She works as an alternative education teacher and writer. Her first book, When Jeff Comes Home, was based on a true incident that occurred near her home town. The novel received the International Reading Association Young Adults Choice and the ALA Best Books for Young Adults awards.
Her second book Alt Ed (2003) is the story of a group of six students who “enroll an after-school counseling program to avoid expulsion”. (“Catherine Atkins”, 2005) The novel made both the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age List (2004) and the ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults citation.
"Catherine Atkins." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 May 2010.
Book Talking Ideas
1. How do the different characters (i.e. Jeff, his father, Vin, his brother, kids at school, etc.) react to Jeff’s return? How did his abduction affect them?
2. Why does Jeff defend Ray in the beginning, saying repeatedly “He never touched me”?
Challenges
This novel has been challenged due to its content, specifically the issues of sexual abuse, and language. In 2005 the novel was challenged in an Irving, TX middle school, although the book remained in the collection, a parent permission slip was needed to check out the book.
Unmuth, Katherine Leal. (2005). Librarians fight limits on book about sexual abuse. The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved May 3, 2010 from http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/DN-nubook_19met.ART0.State.Edition2.b8ffc8.html
Why I choose this title
The subject of sexual abuse is a very difficult one to discuss. The emotions the victims and their families must go through are complex and painful. I fell that this novel does a good job of giving some insight into mind and experiences of someone who has gone through one of the most horrible violations I can imagine.
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