Shadow Jumper

J. M. Forster’s Shadow Jumper (2014) is recommended for ages 10-12. Forster is known for writing children’s fiction that features characters facing unusual challenges, combining adventure with emotional depth and realism. This novel touches on themes relevant to contemporary children’s lives, such as dealing with medical conditions, family dynamics, and the value of perseverance and friendship. Forster’s other works include Bad Hair Days (2017), told from the perspective of a female narrator who experiences hair loss, and Shadow Jumper’s sequel, Twilight Robbery (2021). In 2014, Shadow Jumper won the Gold Award in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards.

Shadow Jumper is classified within the genres of middle grade fiction, children’s contemporary fiction, mystery, and adventure. It features Jack Phillips, who is allergic to sunlight. He finds joy in leaping between shadows on rooftops. His parents recently separated, and his dad avoids contacting him. Jack is desperate to learn of his father’s whereabouts. While out shadow jumping one day, Jack befriends Beth, an orphan who feels ostracized.

Jack’s father is a scientist who investigated the cause of Jack’s skin condition. As Jack’s skin worsens, he and Beth hurry to track down his dad and seek information about a potential cure. Jack and Beth work together to learn the secret history of Bioscience Discoveries, Jack’s dad’s former company. As they dive into his dad’s murky past, they realize that the answers they uncover might reveal unpleasant truths. Through his friendship with Beth, Jack learns how to deal with his extreme allergies; through her friendship with Jack, Beth learns how to deal with the death of her parents.

The primary themes discussed in this guide include Coping with Illness and Physical Limitations, The Bonds of Friendship and Teamwork, and Solving Mysteries and Overcoming Obstacles.

The edition of the text used here is the 2014 Kindle edition.

Plot Summary

Jack Phillips enjoys jumping between the shadows on the roof. Up there, he feels free from social pressures and the isolation caused by his extreme allergy to sunlight. One day, a girl joins him on the roof. She startles him, then grabs his hand as he is about to fall. She successfully pulls him back onto the roof. The girl’s name is Beth. She is very pale and carries a heavy rucksack. When Jack returns home after meeting Beth, his neighbor Mrs. Roberts asks him questions. When his mom arrives, Jack asks if his dad is coming home; his parents have recently separated.

The next evening, Beth is waiting for Jack on the rooftops. She is crying. He doesn’t want to deal with her problems at the moment, but she realizes that he is bleeding and he tells her about his allergy. He explains that his dad is a research scientist who helped develop the lotion he uses. Unfortunately, his dad is gone and his skin has been getting worse since his dad left.

Beth offers to help him find his dad. Neither of them has any friends, and they are grateful for the other’s company. Beth asks him to teach her how to shadow jump. He suggests that Beth remove her rucksack so it doesn’t weigh her down, but she insists on wearing it. During the course of their jumps from roof to roof, they encounter a bully named Kai, but they escape from him.

Beth tells Jack that both of her parents died in a car crash, so she now lives with family friends and their seven other children. Jack discovers that Beth is very sensitive about people touching her rucksack, but she doesn’t explain why.

Jack’s dad, Tom, has a sister, Lil, with whom he communicates. Auntie Lil phones to say that Tom got a new job on a science project, but she still doesn’t know where he is. Jack’s skin is getting worse: more sores are popping up. Jack hopes that his dad will return and give him a new lotion that will better help his skin. Jack notices Mrs. Roberts watching him. Beth thinks that they should head to Colford to visit Auntie Lil and ask if she knows where Jack’s dad is.

To avoid the daylight, they take a night bus. Just as they are about to arrive in Colford, the bus hits something and is waylaid. Jack and Beth investigate and discover a dead dog lying off the road. They are disturbed to note that the dog is covered in sores and is missing much of its fur. They decide to walk the rest of the way to Auntie Lil’s house. Once they arrive, Beth realizes that she forgot her rucksack on the bus. She goes into a full-blown panic and demands they retrieve it as soon as possible. Jack wonders what is in her bag.

First thing the next morning, Beth insists on going to the bus station to claim her bag. Auntie Lil tells them that Jack’s dad was involved in experiments at Bioscience Discoveries that went badly. She says he was working on projects dedicated to anti-aging. Jack can’t shake the feeling that he is being watched. At a café, after retrieving Beth’s rucksack, Jack and Beth encounter Ted Harris, a former cleaner at Bioscience Discoveries who turned whistleblower. He tells them that scientists at Bioscience Discoveries conducted unethical experiments involving animals and children.

At one point, Jack lifts Beth’s rucksack and realizes how heavy it is. He asks to see what’s inside. She hesitates, then shows him that she carries two urns that contain her parents’ ashes. Outside, Jack notices then follows an elderly woman who looks like Mrs. Roberts. Jack and Beth go to the library to look up newspapers from which learn that Jack’s dad was well-known for his research, but that he left his company suddenly after the allegations of experiments on children hit the press.

Jack wonders if his dad was conducting experiments on him. Beth thinks they should go to the lab in person. Once there, they pretend they are doing a school project. The public relations manager, Fiona, gives them a tour, but she is suspicious of them and kicks them out when she realizes they are lying about the purpose for their visit. They want to ask Dr. Blackstone questions about Jack’s dad, but she refuses to put them in contact with him. Jack and Beth decide to return at night to stake out the lab and try to find Blackstone.

Back at Auntie Lil’s house, Jack interrupts his aunt as she is vacuuming. He realizes that Beth’s parents’ ashes have fallen all over the floor and that some of them are now inside the vacuum. He hides this from Beth because he does not want her to be upset, but also because he doesn’t want this unfortunate event to overshadow their stakeout.

At the lab that night, they climb a fence and break in. They escape the security guard and locate a room filled with caged rats. Several of the rats are covered in sores very similar to those on Jack and on the dog that the bus killed. Beth thinks that the lab they enter is Dr. Blackstone’s private lab. She reads some lab notes and learns that the rats received the anti-aging serum, which caused their symptoms. Jack wonders if Dr. Blackstone and his dad experimented on children with the anti-aging serum. Two men enter the lab, and the kids hide. Jack thinks one of the men is his dad, but he is wrong. He and Beth flee the room. They run around the lab, trying to outrun the security guards and scientists. They eventually decide to climb on the glass roof. Jack falls, hits his head, and passes out.

When he awakens, he and Beth are in a small room. Dr. Blackstone tells him that no experiments were ever conducted on children and that Jack has no reason to doubt his dad’s integrity. After Dr. Blackstone leaves, Jack tells Beth that the ashes are no longer in her bag, and she is understandably very upset. Beth admits to Jack that she blames herself for her parents’ deaths because she asked them to come home early from a party to be with her.

Jack reads an article in Beth’s magazine that suggests many skin conditions are psychosomatic, that they occur or worsen because of stress. He considers his stress and anxiety over the past few months and links his worst skin days to times when his dad disappointed him. Jack and Beth get into a fight after he suggests that she needs to get over her parents’ deaths.

Tom realizes how his conduct affects Jack, and he comes home briefly. Tom and Maeve decide it is best if they divorce. Tom tells Jack he is moving to Scotland for a new research position, but he promises he will make a better effort to communicate with Jack. Jack fears that his friendship with Beth is over, but one day she meets him on the roof. They run through the rain and once again, they encounter Kai. As they flee, Beth falls and is holding onto the gutter with one hand and her bag with the other. Jack throws the bag to save her. The ashes fall, but Beth is grateful that Jack chose her over her parents’ ashes.

A few weeks later, they go to the beach where Beth finds closure for her parents’ deaths by scattering rose petals instead of ashes.