I’m reading the book The Royal Woods by Matt Duggan, which was nominated for The Moonbeam Award and The Silver Birch Award. If you want to know what is about, just read here: http://49thshelf.com/Books/T/The-Royal-Woods2
Anyway, I wanted to talk about the dad in the book. The dad is kind of, but not really the villain. I’m not far enough to tell who is the main villain. He is the one that drove Sydney and Turk to travel across the country between two boxcars on a train without any food, water or sleep. The dad hasn’t been in the book yet, but he has been mentioned a few times and so far described as sad and lonely. “After their mother died. their dad became very sad. In fact, he became so sad that he stopped doing all the things a dad is supposed to do for his children. There was hardly ever proper food to eat or clean clothes to wear, birthdays went by without parties or cakes, and they started the school year without fresh school supplies or new shoes. There wasn’t even a tree at Christmastime.”(p.49)
I think that the dad is suffering from depression. Sadness or grief from the death or loss of a loved one (His wife in this case), though natural, may increase the risk of depression. When people have depression, they are usually tired and don’t have the energy to do what they are supposed to do, like being a dad and taking care of his kids.
I’ve read many books that kind of have the same theme. One of the parents die (usually the mom, I noticed), and the other one gets really depressed where they can’t take care of their kids any more so the kid is on their own. They feel very miserable and feel like they are just some obstacle to them. One example of a book of the top of my head that is like this is ”A Year in the Life of a Total and Complete Genius” by Stacey Matson, which Mrs.O’Hara read to us aloud last year.
What I would've done in Sydney's case was probably tell someone I trusted about it and reach out for help. A grandparent, an uncle, a teacher or even see if I can call a depression hotline that may help. I may try to convince the dad to seek therapy or even just talk though I’m not sure he would listen, in the book it even said that he can’t even stand to look at them.
I can’t completely blame Sydney for what she did. She probably didn’t know or understand what he was going through. She thought that the reason their can’t even stand to look at them was because both Sydney and Turk resembled their mother. Especially Sydney with her red hair and green eyes. “She figured that if they weren’t there to remind him of their mother, her dad would stop being sad and he could get better. Leaving him alone would be doing him the biggest favour she could thank of. Or maybe Sydney was just plain mad at her dad. Maybe she just convinced herself that she was doing him a favour, when in fact what she was really trying to do by running away was to teach him a lesson. She’d show him that if he couldn’t be bothered to take care of them, they could just as easily get by without him.”
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