Louder Than Hunger
An instant New York Times bestseller!

Every so often a book comes along that is so brave and necessary, it extends a lifeline when it’s needed most. This is one of those books.” —Katherine Applegate, author of the Newbery Medal–winning, The One and Only Ivan

Revered teacher, librarian, and story ambassador John Schu explores anorexia—and self-expression as an act of survival—in a wrenching and transformative novel-in-verse.


But another voice inside me says,
We need help.
We’re going to die.

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 much-anticipated verse novel is a powerful model for muffling the destructive voices inside, managing and articulating pain, and embracing self-acceptance, support, and love.
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Louder Than Hunger
An instant New York Times bestseller!

Every so often a book comes along that is so brave and necessary, it extends a lifeline when it’s needed most. This is one of those books.” —Katherine Applegate, author of the Newbery Medal–winning, The One and Only Ivan

Revered teacher, librarian, and story ambassador John Schu explores anorexia—and self-expression as an act of survival—in a wrenching and transformative novel-in-verse.


But another voice inside me says,
We need help.
We’re going to die.

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 much-anticipated verse novel is a powerful model for muffling the destructive voices inside, managing and articulating pain, and embracing self-acceptance, support, and love.
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Louder Than Hunger

Louder Than Hunger

by John Schu
Louder Than Hunger

Louder Than Hunger

by John Schu

Hardcover

$18.99 
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Overview

An instant New York Times bestseller!

Every so often a book comes along that is so brave and necessary, it extends a lifeline when it’s needed most. This is one of those books.” —Katherine Applegate, author of the Newbery Medal–winning, The One and Only Ivan

Revered teacher, librarian, and story ambassador John Schu explores anorexia—and self-expression as an act of survival—in a wrenching and transformative novel-in-verse.


But another voice inside me says,
We need help.
We’re going to die.

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 much-anticipated verse novel is a powerful model for muffling the destructive voices inside, managing and articulating pain, and embracing self-acceptance, support, and love.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781536229097
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Publication date: 03/19/2024
Pages: 528
Sales rank: 23,927
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.70(d)
Age Range: 10 - 14 Years

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.

Read an Excerpt

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.

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