Brief Summary of School Reading List Books - Ievgen Sykalo 2026

You Can’t Eat Your Chicken Pox, Amber Brown by Paula Danziger

I’m Amber Brown, and I was supposed to be happy. That’s what everyone kept saying. “You’re going to Europe, Amber,” as if that explains away everything — the fact that my dad lives over there now, the fact that he left, the fact that my mom is trying too hard to be fine, and I’m... not. But I smile when they say it. I nod. I try to act like someone whose parents aren’t divorced, someone who doesn’t have half her heart stretched across the Atlantic Ocean like old gum.

It’s summer. There should be ice cream. Pool days. Cartwheels. Instead, I’m counting down the days to England, pretending it’s all about museums and Beefeaters and Big Ben. But really it’s about Dad. Seeing Dad. I haven’t seen him in what feels like a billion years. Okay, maybe less. But enough to make me forget how his hugs feel or if he still says "sport" instead of my name like I’m on a soccer team and not a girl with stomachaches every night before bed.

But I don’t tell Mom about the stomachaches. I don’t want her to worry. She already looks tired enough — her new boyfriend, Max, is nice (ugh), but nice in that way that makes you feel like you’re in a commercial for a blended family. He laughs too hard at his own jokes. He brings her flowers for no reason. She’s glowing like she swallowed the sun. And I’m just sitting there at dinner, pushing peas around my plate, wondering if Dad’s new apartment smells the same as his old one.

And then the suitcase thing starts. My mom’s obsessed with packing. She’s like a squirrel on espresso. Socks, backup socks, vitamins, books, more socks. She prints out this itinerary that looks like a map to Mars. I don’t even read it — I just nod again. If I nod, I don’t have to explain that I’m scared. Not just of flying, but of what I’ll find. Or won’t. What if Dad’s changed? What if he doesn’t get me anymore? What if he thinks I’ve changed?

But I get on the plane. I grip the armrest. I breathe like I’ve been taught — long, slow, fake confidence. There’s this part of me that wants to cry but I squash it like a bug. You don’t cry on planes when you’re brave. And I’m trying to be brave, even though my insides feel like the spin cycle of a washing machine.

Then — boom — London. Gray skies, polite voices, and a dad who looks a little older than I remembered but still has that smile that makes me feel like I haven’t been forgotten. He scoops me up at the airport and says “Hey, sport,” and my stomach does this weird little flip that might be relief or happiness or both mixed with jet lag. I want to ask him if he missed me, if he thought about me every day like I thought about him. But the words get stuck. So instead I just hug him tighter than I should.

The hotel is weirdly fancy. The beds are bouncy, and the wallpaper looks like someone sneezed flowers all over it. Dad lets me jump on the bed. Mom wouldn’t. She’d say something about posture or safety. But Dad grins like a kid, says, “Go for it, sport,” and I do. I bounce until I fall over and laugh, and for a second, I forget I’m mad at the world.

The first few days are good. We do the whole tourist thing — Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, red phone booths, weird breakfasts with beans and tomatoes (seriously?). Dad talks like a tour guide and holds my hand when we cross the street because cars come from the wrong direction here. It feels okay. Not perfect. But okay.

And then the chicken pox happen.

At first, it’s just a dot. I think maybe I scratched myself. Then another. Then five. Then I’m burning up, and Dad’s face does that thing where his smile disappears like someone erased it. We go to a doctor who says something about “quarantine” and “contagious” and “no more sightseeing,” and just like that, my great summer reunion is turned into a stay-at-home sick fest.

I cry. Like, really cry. I try not to — I’m ten, not a baby — but the dam breaks, and all the fear and frustration come pouring out. I feel gross. My face is bumpy. I can’t go out. I can’t eat normal food. Everything itches. And Dad has to cancel our plans. We were supposed to go to Paris. He was going to take me to this place he loved when he was in college. It was going to be magic.

Instead, I lie in a strange bed in a strange hotel room with a cold cloth on my head and cartoons in an accent I barely understand.

Dad tries. He really tries. He reads to me. He brings me ice cream. He jokes about British TV and makes up songs about calamine lotion. But there’s this heaviness now. I feel like I ruined everything. Like I brought the chicken pox just to sabotage this trip. Like I’ve become too much, too sick, too sad.

There’s this one night — maybe the worst one — where I can’t sleep. My skin feels like it’s crawling. I’m hot and cold all at once. Dad’s in the chair by the bed, snoring a little, slumped over. He looks old. Not bad-old. Just... tired. Like maybe he’s been trying as hard as I’ve been pretending.

I whisper, “Dad?” and he jolts awake like I rang an alarm. He rubs his eyes and leans over and says, “Hey, sport. What’s up?”

I pause. Then, all in a rush: “I miss you. I hate that we live so far away. I hate that you and Mom aren’t together. I hate chicken pox. I hate England.”

He blinks. And then, the worst thing: he gets tears in his eyes. Grown-up tears. Not the loud sobbing kind, but the quiet kind that sit there, waiting.

“Amber,” he says, “I miss you too. Every single day.”

We don’t say anything after that. He just strokes my hair — carefully, to avoid the pox — and we sit there with all the hurt and love and confusion packed into the space between us. It doesn’t get solved. It doesn’t magically feel better. But it feels true. And that’s something.

The rest of the trip is a blur of recovery and canceled plans and us watching bad British soap operas while eating toast. It’s not the vacation of the century. But it’s weirdly... honest. Like, without the sightseeing, there’s just us. And that’s harder. But maybe better.

When it’s time to leave, I don’t want to. Not because the trip was perfect — it wasn’t — but because I know what’s waiting. Saying goodbye again. Going back to a life where “dad” is a phone call, not a person in the room.

At the airport, Dad hugs me tight. He says, “You’re amazing, Amber. Even with spots.”

I grin, but it’s wobbly.

He says he’ll call. That we’ll figure something out. That this isn’t the end.

And I nod. Again. Because sometimes that’s all you can do.

On the plane, I think about everything. The ruined trip. The love that’s still there. The weird way life is never what you expect, but somehow you keep going anyway. I scratch my arm, then stop, because Mom says not to.

I close my eyes. I dream about toast and chicken pox and Paris and hugs that don’t last long enough.

When I wake up, we’re flying over the ocean again, and I think — maybe I’ll be okay. Not perfect. But okay.

And that, weirdly, is enough.