He Forgot to Say Goodbye
Saenz, B.
(2008). He forgot to say goodbye. New
York: Simon & Schuster for Kids.
He Forgot to Say Goodbye is a very
believable contemporary fiction novel about two very different boys. Ramiro “Ram” Lopez and Jake Upthegrove are
complete opposites: Ram is a stereotypical Hispanic boy, poor, struggling,
having to take on adult emotional responsibilities and Jake is a stereotypical
rich white boy, spoiled, disrespectful, and entitled. Only, they share one thing in common, the one
thing that has shaped who they are up to this point, and that one thing is
being abandoned by their fathers at a time when little boys need their dads the
most. The two boys, who go to school
next door to one another, Ram at a public school and Jake at a posh private
school, meet and become friends and over time, together, figure out that having
a loser dad doesn’t mean they have to be losers as well, and that you just can’t
help who your family is (Ram has a troubled brother and Jake has an alcoholic
mother who’s married to a his cheating step-dad), but you can help who you are. Written in a back-and-forth style, He Forgot to Say Goodbye is an example
of the growth of the two boys, both emotionally and socially, which makes the
novel very identifiable to upper middle to high school readers.
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