Louder Than Hunger - Softcover

Schu, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1536232521 ISBN 13: 9781536232523

Publisher: Candlewick, 2025

Synopsis

A Schneider Family Book Award Honor Book

“This heart-wrenching verse novel—inspired by the author’s experiences . . . is an unflinching depiction of resistance and disordered eating recovery.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. Jake has read about kids like him in books—the weird one, the outsider—and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears? A fictionalized account of the author’s experiences and emotions living in residential treatment facilities as a young teen with an eating disorder, Louder Than Hunger is a triumph of raw honesty. With a deeply personal afterword for context, this verse novel is a powerful model for muffling the destructive voices inside, managing and articulating pain, and embracing self-acceptance, support, and love.

About this title

About the Author

John Schu is the author of the acclaimed picture books This Is a School, illustrated by Veronica Miller Jamison, and This Is a Story, illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Lauren Castillo. He also wrote the adult study The Gift of Story: Exploring the Affective Side of the Reading Life and was named a Library Journal Mover and Shaker for his dynamic interactions with students and his passionate adoption of new technologies as a means of connecting authors, illustrators, books, and readers. Children’s librarian for Bookelicious, part-time lecturer at Rutgers University, and former Ambassador of School Libraries for Scholastic Book Fairs, Mr. Schu—as he is affectionately known—continues to travel the world to share his love of books. He lives in Naperville, Illinois. You can find him at www.JohnSchu.com and on social media @MrSchuReads.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

This Notebook Belongs To:
Jake Stacey
 
Grade: 8
 
Year: 1996
 
Favorite Subject: Language Arts
 
Favorite Book: The Giver by Lois Lowry
 
Favorite Movie: Home Alone
 
Favorite Sport: Rollerblading
 
Favorite Food:
 
A Goal: To see a musical on Broadway with Grandma

 
Writing My Name
I write
Jake
in
cursive
 
over
 
and
 
over
 
and
 
over.
 
It’s
calming.
 
Filling
page after page
 
in my notebooks
with signatures.
 
Using
different
colors.
 
Purple.
 
 
Green.
 
 
Blue.
 
It’s
soothing.
 
Trying out
different
styles.
 
Fancy.
 
Plain.
Bold.
 
Experimenting with
 
markers,                highlighters,         pastels.
 
Why is it
calming?
 
Why is it
soothing?
 
Maybe
because
I’m hoping
by writing
my name
over
and
over,
I’ll
 
figure
out
who
I
am.
 
Jake
 
Jake
 
Jake
 
 
Jake
 
Jake
 
Jake
 
Jake

 
Nobody?
My stomach
G-R-O-W-L-S.
 
The Voice
tells it
to
 
S
        T
                O
                        P.
 
I toss the markers
inside the top drawer
of my desk.
 
I tear out the page
and rip it up
into little bits,
dropping each
 
piece into the
garbage can.
 
I look at a photo of
Emily Dickinson
taped to my desk.
 
I know
her poem
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?”
by heart.
 
So I run in place,
burning as many calories as I can,
repeating
the opening lines
 
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?
 
as
FAST
as
I
can.
 
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?
 
The Voice says,
 
YOU—ARE—REPULSIVE!
 
 
Am I Nobody, Too?
When I can’t run anymore
I sit down again at my 
big brown desk.
 
Mom
knocks, knocks, knocks 
on my bedroom door.
 
I ignore her.
 
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
 
I don’t have
enough energy
to tell her to
GO AWAY—
to leave me alone.
 
I wish everyone
 
would leave me alone—
forever.
 
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
 
Worry enters the room.
 
She brings it
wherever she goes.
 
You can feel it.
 
Smell it.
 
Mom puts a plate of
pretzels and pepperoni
on my desk next to me.
 
My stomach
G-R-O-W-L-S
            again.
 
 
The Voice says,
 
DON’T EAT THAT GARBAGE!
 
YOU ALREADY ATE AN APPLE TODAY!
 
YOU DIDN’T EXERCISE ENOUGH!
 
She says,
 
Why haven’t you started your homework?
 
This isn’t like you.
 
What’s going on?
 
I want to say,
 
This isn’t like you.
 
You don’t usually care.
 
I glare at
math
 
problems,
wishing
X and Y
would
run away.
 
I imagine
feeding the
garbage
disposal
pretzels,
pepperoni, and
these
wretched
worksheets,
watching
it
grind
everything
into
tiny
bits.
 
 
The Voice
The
negative
Voice
inside
my
head
talks
nonstop.
 
It
has
since
the
middle
of
seventh
grade.
 
It’s
louder
than
 
the
hunger
in
my
stomach.
 
I
weigh
myself
10
times
per
day.
 
Then
15
times
per
day.
 
Then
20
times
per
day.
 
The
lower
the
number
on
the
scale
goes,
the
bigger
I
feel.
 
The
bigger
I
feel,
the
less
I
eat.
 
The
less
 
I
eat,
the
less
I
feel.
 
I
make
my
body
smaller
and
smaller
and
smaller.
 
I
punish
myself
day
after
day.
 
Why?
 
For
taking
up
too
much
space.
 
For
being
me.
 
For
breathing.
 
 
Clothes
I own
two pairs of
overalls:
one denim,
one corduroy.
 
I wear
a pair
every day
to school
 
Sometimes
I wear a big sweatshirt
over the overalls.
 
Most
people
think
it’s
strange.
 
But
waistbands,
seams,
fabrics
make me feel
itchy,
gross.
 
Aware of
every inch of my body,
every movement.
 
Aware of
how the denim
touches my
collarbone.
 
Aware of
how the corduroy
rubs against my
thigh.
 
Aware of
how my body
 
feels at every
moment:
itchy,
gross,
growing.

Edition details

• Publisher: Candlewick
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1536232521
• ISBN 13: 9781536232523
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528