Book Review: This Isn't About the Money

Fair Trade Book

Book Title: This Isn't About the Money

Author: Sally Warner

Date: 2002

Publisher: Scholastic

ISBN: 0-439-67033-0

Length: 209 pages

Quote: “It was Janey's twelfth birthday, and she was in a private room on the second floor of Children's Hospital."

Janey is recovering from an accident. Her family's car was hit by a drunk driver. Her parents are dead. Janey and her five-year-old sister Yolanda, or Yoyo, are living with their grandfather and great-aunt.

Apart from their being orphans, there's nothing special about Janey or Yoyo. The purpose of their story is to teach children about orphans in general. This is, therefore, a generic story about generic orphans, with an outcome typical of "teenaged problem novels" in all but one way: Janey is still only twelve at the end of the book, so a Teen Romance doesn't have to be tacked on.

As a child I never felt much interest in generic, lowest-common-denominator characters, and so as an adult I question their usefulness for their intended purpose. When all characters do is act out the prescribed stages of grief (in a tidier order than real people usually manage), without reference to the real story of any real person living or dead, I have to wonder whether even girls between ages five and twelve would read longer and absorb more information if the book were presented in nonfiction form.

But here it is, in the form of a novel that might be helpful to girl readers who wonder why bereaved people sue for such outrageous amounts of money, or why a friend they might have wanted to console seems withdrawn or antisocial, or why friends never let friends drive under the influence of anything that might impair their judgment. This Isn't About the Money is not a novel likely to be read for insight or entertainment. For some people, however, it may be a good teaching or counselling tool.