Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie

 In Jordan Sonnenblick's book, Drums, Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, the protagonist, Steven Alper, goes through a lot of challenges in his middle school life. He was having a normal middle school life until one day, they found out his brother, Jeffery had Leukemia. This changed Steven’s life, emerging a new journey for Steven to face. This will show how Steven matures after making personal sacrifices that were needed to help his brother.

Steven shaved his head. It was the first day that Jeffery had gone back to his kindergarten ever since he was cleared to go. Jeffery was very exciting to go. Later that day when Steven got home, he saw his brother crying. It seemed when he went into his classroom he said hi to one student, but the students answer was, “He’s bald!” that had sent Steven into a crying fit, so he had to be picked up early and sent home. Steven felt really bad about Jeffery, him being the only bald kid. So he made a decision and over night, there were now two bald kids in town. In the morning Steven had showed the whole family, they all smiled, but Jeffery ran up to Steven and gave him a huge hug. This made Steven feel like he did the right thing.

He had kicked Renne, the hottest girl in school, out of his house. Renne had come to tutor Steven in math. It was the middle of winter and, Renne had a cold. Since Jeffrey had cancer and his immune system was low, and sickness could easily spread to him, causing a very bad reaction, sending him back to the hospital. Steven knew that so he tried his best to keep her out the house. Renne at the end became frustrated that Steven kicked her out, being the girl that any boy would dream of having at their house! But at the end, she left. This was an incident that saved Jeffery from another ride to the hospital.

Steven left his concert to go to the hospital with Jeffery.  Steven was at his concert that he had practiced almost ALL his life for. He was the lead drummer and right after his dad’s speech, he saw Jeffery throwing up in the garbage. He felt Jeffery’s head and it was hot as hell. He knew Jeffery had to go to the hospital right away, and that Jeffery needed him to come, but his concert was about to start right then. But Steven knew he had to leave to the hospital. So his whole family had gone in an ambulance rushing to the hospital. This was brave of Steven to do.

When you have a relative, more importantly in your family, it is hard to deal with. Jeffery for one, had leukemia, creating Steven and his whole family to make sacrifices on their own. Steven loves his brother and family and risked many important things to him, just save his family.