Imaginary

Author: Lee Bacon
Illustrator: Katy Wu

© Date: 2021
Publisher: Amulet Books
Pages: 299
Chapters: Yes
Illustrations: Yes, but most pages do not have an illustration
Publisher Recommended Age: 8-12 years
Bonus Activities at End of Book: No

Summary from Book: Zach should’ve outgrown his imaginary friend by now, he knows that…

Zach’s eleven, long past the days when kids are supposed to go on epic, make-believe adventures with their invisible friends. But after the death of his father five years ago, all Zach has wanted is an escape from the real world. So his imaginary friend, Shovel, hasn’t faded away like the other kids’ have.

Shovel tries his best to lift his spirits, but now that Zach’s in middle school, things are getting a little awkward. His best friend ditched him for a cooler crowd. His classmates tease him in the hallways. He still misses his dad. Reality is the worst. Which is why Zach still makes regular visits to a fantasy world with Shovel.

But is Zach’s overactive imagination helping him deal with loss or just pushing people away? Moving and heartfelt, Imaginary is the story of a boy and his imaginary friend—told as only an imaginary friend could.

Note: This review is done from memory. I originally read this a short bit ago.

Page Pig Thoughts: A heartfelt story of loss, friendship, dealing with emotions, and trying to fit in. Zach uses his imagination and a shovel to bury a box to cope with losing his father. While Zach was escaping to into his imagination, he loses his best friend in real life. Starting middle school can be a place of angst and feeling different and out of sorts, but how lovely that in this story, a group of children find themselves and each other.

Having Bucket the imaginary friend narrate this story made it more engaging/intriguing. Bucket also helps take the edge off of highly emotionally charged moments because he is in Zach’s head, but still separate enough. Bucket works through his own fears of the unknown, but finds that maybe we should not let our fears guide us.

What a beautiful story of confronting the big emotions of life and coming out on the other side with joy, but able to accept that sadness may also come. And while dealing with what life throws out, having friends and a supportive family to help work through everything.

Family Unit: Zach (age 11) lives at home with his mother. When he was six, his father died.

Conflict/Social Issues:

Zach boxed up his sadness after his father died and uses his imagination to escape the world that no longer makes sense.
Zach and Ryan have hurt feelings after their friendship fizzled out.
Zach is bullied by Ryan and the Matts.
Anni is navigating school as the new girl.
Zach is starting middle school.
Zach knows that he is old for having an imaginary friend, but finds comfort escaping the troubles of life with Bucket by his side.
Bucket is afraid to fade away forever.

Positive Items:

Zach, Anni, and Ryan are all willing to own up to their mistakes and apologize. They apologize to each other. Zach even apologizes to a family that he had never met.
Principal Carter is able to see the wounded child in front of her and offer useful suggestions, like drawing, to Zach that help him continue to process his grief. She also manages to enforce rules while still finding ways to help the children improve as humans (having another week of detention but writing a story together)
Zach finally finds joy in his life that allows him to grow apart from Bucket. But he doesn’t just let Bucket fade to nothing, he introduces Bucket to a new child in need of a friend.
Zach and his mother connect. They are able to come together and share stories of the man that they loved and no longer have in their lives.

Items of Interest:

Zach becomes best friends with his imaginary friend, Shovel, when he was little. His best friend, Ryan, lived next door. When Zach starts becoming better and better friends, Shovel starts fading away.
Zach’s father paints tiny statues to play Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. Zach’s mother jokingly/lovingly calls Zach’s father a nerd for his hobby.
A flashback memory describes that Zach was six years old when his father got sick. A hospital bed with lots of tubes and get well soon cards is mentioned. His father dies. Zach escapes the realities of life by clinging to Shovel and spending time in an imaginary world.
The memory continues that Zach is sad after his father dies, so he goes around the house and collects all of the little things that were his father’s and puts them in the box. He then walks the box out into the backyard and buries it. His mother tells him that they are moving shortly after that. She thinks that those things were lost.
Zach doesn’t want to talk with his imaginary friend, Shovel, or his mother about starting middle school the next day.
On the first day of school, Zach is reluctantly walking to school. Shovel makes him laugh out loud. His childhood friend, Ryan, and two other boys, the Matts, that are bullies. The Matts proceed to make fun of Zach.
The Matts continue to make fun of and bully Zach at school. Ryan starts joining in the antics more and more. Zach’s method to escape is just to walk away. The principal asks him one day if the other boys are bothering him, he says no.
Zach meets a new girl, Anni. He accidentally knocks her new school folders out of her hands. The folder gets kicked around by passing kids in the hallway. He feels badly, so he pulls out a folder of the same color from his backpack and gives it to her. They become friends and sit together at lunch. Anni turns out to be really into secret spy stuff, and has been navigating being the new kid at school.
Despite still being in the first week of school, things have escalated quickly. The Matts and Ryan surround Zach one day at lunch. Pushing starts, Zach defends himself by stomping on Ryan’s foot. The Matts attack Zach. He continues trying to defend himself. As Zach is on the ground, one of the Matts is looming over him and ready to punch him in the face. Anni launches herself from somewhere and knocks the Matt over. When the fight is broken up, Zach is on the ground again. Anni has one of the boys in a headlock. The Principal expels the Matts for a week because that is not their first offense. Zach, Ryan, and Anni wind up in detention for a week.
After the fight, the principal talked with Zach’s mom on the phone, she said many things about Zach, including about his father dying. After that conversation, the principal has a nice chat with Zach. She gives Zach the extra task of finding another outlet for his emotions rather than just escaping to an imaginary world. Zach tries drawing, and with some effort produces some good drawings from his imaginary world. He keeps the drawings to himself.
Detention turns out to be Zach, Ryan, and Anni sitting around a table. The teacher/coach overseeing detention does not pay any attention to them, but apparently spends his time scratching his backside. Zach, Ryan, and Anni talk during detention.
Shortly into detention, Ryan brings mice into detention in his backpack. He releases them into the room and frames Zach and Anni for the mischief. Yes, the coach screams like a little girl and runs out of the room.
Zach and Anni seek revenge. So they hatch a plan to embarrass Ryan with a shoelaces tied together incident. They secretly record the incident on a phone and threaten to post it online to humiliate him. In exchange for not posting the video, Ryan agrees not to bother Zach and Anni anymore.
To distract Ryan for the revenge plot, Zach winds up revealing details about himself and Shovel in front of Anni.
Zach, Ryan, and Anni wind up becoming quick friends once peace is established. Zach arrives home from school so happy.
The next day, he walks in on Ryan and Anni talking about him and Shovel. Zach is really upset and never makes it to detention that day.
Zach also has an argument with Shovel that day, so Shovel is trying to stay away from him and give space. The argument is partly because Shovel gets worried about fading away forever, so he tries to convince Zach not to trust anyone else. Zach becomes a little self conscious about talking with Shovel because he knows that it makes him weird.
Anni and Ryan feel badly about talking about Zach, and they get worried when Zach doesn’t arrive at detention. They walk out of detention to find Zach. No, the teacher/coach does not notice.
Shovel is also really worried about Zach. Since he is in Zach’s head, he cannot talk to anyone else. He follows Anni and Ryan around while they try to find Zach’s house. When they eventually arrive, Zach’s mother is home and gets rather upset when she finds out that no one knows where Zach is.
Shovel figures out that Zach went to his old house to dig up the box of his father’s stuff. Zach cuts himself on a sharp wood piece of the fence trying to climb back out. Shovel helps Zach realize that he needs to go next door because Ryan still lives there. Ryan’s mom finds bleeding Zach. He then looks at the blood and passes out. Ryan’s mom bandages Zach and calls Zach’s mom.
Zach’s mom is surprised to see the box of Zach’s dad’s stuff. She winds up admitting that she moved houses because the old one was too big of a reminder of him and hurt too much. She says that she and Zach have that in common, boxing up what hurts emotionally and trying to forget. They bond and start sharing memories of the man they loved at dinner times.
Zach’s mom, Ryan, and Anni arrive. Ryan and Anni apologize to Zach. They go back to being friends. Shovel continues fading.
Turns out that Ryan had tried to continue being friends with Zach after his dad died. But Zach would not leave his room and just escaped into his imaginary world. Ryan was sad to lose his friend, and finds his to sports. Ryan invited Zach to join him, but eventually stopped asking. He became friends with the Matts through sports and found himself in the popular crowd. He discovers that to be a part he needs to keep finding the right clothes, right hair, and a nothing ever bothers him attitude.
Zach, Ryan, and Anni receive extra detention for leaving detention. The principal gives them the task of writing a story together. Zach illustrates it.
Ryan seems to be navigating being friends with the Matts, but keeping his friendship with Zach and Anni secret. Ryan also seems to be navigating keeping the Matts away from Zach and Anni.
Later, Zach goes back to apologize to the house owners for sneaking into their backyard without permission and digging up the yard by the back fence. He offers to fill in the holes. The two dads had already filled in the holes, but appreciate the apology. When Zach hears their small daughter bemoaning having to play by herself, he introduces her to Shovel. Zach suggest that the girl and Shovel become friends. Shovel makes sure that Zach is sure about his choice. Shovel goes on to become good friends with the girl and has fun imaginary adventures with her.
Later, Zach is back with Anni to hang out with Ryan. The girl says hi. Zach says hi to Shovel, but he no longer sees Shovel where he actually is.

Noteworthy Quotes (Slight modifications for readability made):

→[Zach] “The whole reason I buried my dad’s old stuff was because it made me sad. Like if I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t feel bad anymore. Except burying it didn’t fix anything. I was still sad. All the time. But when I was in Principal Carter’s office, she said this thing. ‘When you try to avoid something, you actually make it bigger.’ That got me thinking. That’s what I was doing with the box. Taking all the stuff that makes me sad and hiding it underground. But that won’t get rid of the sadness. It only makes it bigger.”[Shovel] “If you find the box, do you think you’ll feel better?”[Zach] “Maybe, Maybe not. But this is what I need to do. I can’t keep pretending the bad stuff isn’t there.”

→ I used to look back at your life-at our life-and wonder: What would I change? How would things be different? I’m done thinking that way now. No matter how much we might want to, we can’t change the past. All we can do is try to learn from it. To make the most of the time we have here. To appreciate the people around us. Our family and our friends. Even the imaginary ones.

→ I’ve always wondered what happens to imaginary friends when we reach our expiration date. Even though I still haven’t reached mine, I think I understand:Nothing lasts forever. People die. Imaginary friends fade.But that doesn’t mean they’re gone.
Even after someone or something goes away, a part of them still remains. In the memories you keep. In the stories you tell…