40 Fun Facts About Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

Why does the scarred Sarah Byrnes insist that everyone at school always use her full name?

Its pun on her burns is why she demands both names: the surname echoes the injury that scarred her face and hands when she was three years old.

Why does a slimming Eric Calhoune go on gorging himself after joining the swim team in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?

To keep his best friend, Eric tries to stay as much an outcast as Sarah Byrnes. The two had bonded as children over his weight and her scars.

Which underground newspaper do Eric Calhoune and Sarah Byrnes write to mock the bullies at their junior high?

Crispy Pork Rinds takes its name from the pair's own pain: a sarcastic nod to her burn scars and his weight. Its first issue went after one particular bully.

Sarah Byrnes's father deliberately burned her face against which household object during a fight with her mother?

A wood stove left the scars that Sarah Byrnes long passed off as an accident. She was three when her father pressed her face to it to punish her mother.

What does Eric Calhoune eventually discover about Sarah Byrnes's catatonic silence in the hospital psychiatric ward?

She is faking it: the silence is a ruse, because the hospital is the one place she feels safe from her father. His abuse had been getting worse.

To which city does Ms. Lemry take Sarah Byrnes to search for the mother who abandoned her?

Reno is where the trail leads, and the reunion in Nevada is no fairy tale. Her mother runs when she sees them and has to be chased down.

What happens to Carver Middleton after he traps and badly injures Sarah Byrnes's fugitive father, Virgil?

He goes to jail for the beating, even though he was the one who worked out where the fugitive was hiding. Virgil is later given twenty years in prison.

Which weapon does Virgil Byrnes use on Eric Calhoune while demanding to know where Sarah Byrnes is hiding?

A hunting knife leaves Eric with a slashed cheek and a blade in his back. He staggers to the house of a former bully, whose father helps get him to hospital.

What does swim coach Ms. Lemry do for Sarah Byrnes once Virgil Byrnes is finally sent to prison?

Adopts her: Ms. Lemry and her husband give Sarah Byrnes the loving home her own parents never did. Kirkus called the storybook ending a welcome relief, though a forced one after so much pain.

Which whale-inspired nickname sticks to the once-heavy swimmer Eric Calhoune in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?

Moby, as in Moby Dick, outlasts the weight he sheds in the pool: even after slimming down he is still called it by his friends.

At which hospital does Eric Calhoune visit the silent Sarah Byrnes after she goes mute in class?

Sacred Heart is where a counselor urges Eric to simply keep talking to her, in the hope that ordinary conversation will draw her back.

Which former bully tells Eric Calhoune that Sarah Byrnes's scars were inflicted by her own father?

Dale Thornton knew because Sarah Byrnes had confided in him alone: both had grown up with abuse. He once tormented the pair, then became their protection.

Where does Ms. Lemry hide Sarah Byrnes after the teenager flees the hospital to escape her father?

Above her garage sits an apartment, and Ms. Lemry hatches the plan after Eric breaks his promise of secrecy and tells her everything.

Why is finding Sarah Byrnes's long-absent mother so vital to building a court case against Virgil Byrnes?

She witnessed the abuse, and no one else did. Sarah Byrnes fears her own word would not stand up in court, since she was only three when it happened.

How does Sarah Byrnes's mother respond when her daughter and Ms. Lemry finally track her down?

She refuses to help, even when Sarah Byrnes begs her to come back and make up for lost time. Sarah had started the trip furious at being left behind.

Why does Virgil Byrnes refuse to let doctors repair the scars on his daughter Sarah's face and hands?

They will make her tougher, he claims. The man who scarred her then leaves his daughter to face years of taunts with nothing but a sharp tongue.

Carver Middleton, who finally confronts Virgil Byrnes, is a veteran of the war in which country?

Vietnam gave the mild-seeming Carver skills nobody suspected. He works out where Virgil is hiding and lays a trap for him.

In Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, who is the seemingly wimpy Carver Middleton to Eric Calhoune?

His mother's boyfriend looks like the last person to rely on, yet Carver wins Eric over. One reviewer wrote that Eric ends up with a stepfather he can respect.

In Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, what does devout Mark Brittain do after his treatment of Jody Mueller is exposed?

He attempts suicide, unable to square what he did with what he preaches. He survives, and later visits Eric in hospital to say he feels stupid about it all.

In Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, what secret about her past with Mark Brittain does Jody Mueller reveal?

An abortion, which he had pushed her to have and then blamed her for. Jody leaves him and starts going out with Eric.

What does Steve Ellerby call the car whose religious mockery infuriates Mark Brittain in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?

The Christian Cruiser is Ellerby's rolling provocation, and it works: the car is a running source of tension between him and his devout teammate at swim practice.

What is the profession of Steve Ellerby's father, who defends his son in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?

A minister, which is the twist: the boy who needles the school's loudest believer is a clergyman's son, and the author says his faith is every bit as real.

In Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, what does Steve Ellerby's father accuse school official Mr. Mautz of mixing?

Church and state, he says, after Mr. Mautz lets another father blame two students for his son's crisis. He insists nothing more be said until the principal returns.

Eric Calhoune is in which year of high school when Sarah Byrnes falls silent and is hospitalized?

Senior year finds Eric slimmer and with more friends than ever, just as the friend who got him through junior high needs him most.

What does Eric Calhoune know about his absent father in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?

Left before the birth: that is all Eric knows, and he resents it on his mother's behalf. He admits he would still like a father figure to talk to.

Which family hardship lies behind Steve Ellerby's questions about faith in Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?

His older brother's death made Ellerby wrestle early with questions most classmates have yet to face, leaving him a quieter faith that allows for uncertainty.

Why does Sarah Byrnes try to run away again while Eric Calhoune recovers in the hospital?

To protect her friends: with her father still at large, she decides nobody else should be hurt on her account. Eric and Ms. Lemry stop her.

How does Sarah Byrnes react when she discovers the reason Eric Calhoune keeps gorging himself?

Threatens to beat him senseless, and the binging stops. Eric has admired her since grade school as the toughest person he knows.

Which agency does Sarah Byrnes fear will be called in if Eric Calhoune tells an adult about her father?

Child Protective Services would have to step in, she knows, and she begs him to keep quiet. Eric tells his swim coach anyway, breaking his promise.

Which gift from Eric Calhoune becomes the place where Sarah Byrnes sets down her letter about her father?

A notebook was meant for sharing her plans with him; instead she fills it with a letter about why she is desperate to get away from her father.

Alongside writing novels like Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, Chris Crutcher built a career in which helping profession?

Family therapist is the day job behind the fiction: Crutcher has written that the characters and situations in this novel come from real places.

Which library association lifetime honor went to Chris Crutcher for books including Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?

Margaret A. Edwards Award judges cited six of his books in 2000, this one among them, for a lasting contribution to writing for teens.

Which Pacific state's Young Reader Medal did Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes win in the young adult category?

California gave the novel its Young Reader Medal in 1997, one of a string of honors that also includes a School Library Journal Best Book citation.

A Missouri high school that once removed Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes later named which student group after Sarah?

English honor society members at Smithville High became the Sarah Byrnes Society in 2006, eleven years after the district pulled the novel from its classrooms.

Which debut novel did Chris Crutcher publish a decade before Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?

Running Loose came out in 1983 and set the pattern: most Crutcher protagonists are teenage athletes, often swimmers, with serious personal problems.

Which 1995 film grew from a short story by Chris Crutcher, author of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes?

Angus began as a story in Crutcher's collection Athletic Shorts, about a brief moment in the life of a boy named Angus Bethune.

In which small Idaho town did Chris Crutcher, author of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, grow up?

Cascade was his mother's hometown: the family moved there weeks after his birth in Ohio, and his father swapped flying bombers for an oil and gas business.

Chris Crutcher, author of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, joined the Child Protection Team of which Washington city?

Spokane put Crutcher face to face with families in crisis after he finished his first book, and he says this novel's situations come from real places.

Which publisher first released Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes under longtime Chris Crutcher editor Susan Hirschman?

Greenwillow Books published it in 1993 under editor Susan Hirschman, who worked on all six of the Crutcher titles later cited for a lifetime honor.

Which Chris Crutcher memoir, subtitled an ill-advised autobiography, followed Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by a decade?

King of the Mild Frontier: An Ill-Advised Autobiography came out in 2003 and recounts his boyhood in small-town Idaho and the path to becoming a writer.