The Thing About Jellyfish

Ali Benjamin grew up in an old house outside of New York City. She eventually attended Grinnell College, where she studied anthropology and took an interest in food issues. Her first book, The Cleaner Plate Club, was nonfiction and dealt with preparing healthful food for children. She continued to write nonfiction, including co-authoring Positive: A Memoir about an HIV-positive teenager and The Keeper, about a goalkeeper and his struggles with OCD while growing up. The Thing about Jellyfish, published in 2015, was Benjamin’s debut novel, and it began her career in children’s fiction. Benjamin has continued to write more books for young readers, including The Next Great Paulie Fink and The Smash-Up. She currently lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

At least 500 million years ago, and possibly over 700 million years ago, jellyfish evolved, becoming the oldest multi-organ animal group. The name “jellyfish” was coined around 1796. The Thing about Jellyfish is set in roughly the year it came out (2015). At one point, Suzy’s child psychologist suggests that she should communicate in person rather than through the phone. While worries about communication technology have long existed, the release of the first iPhone in 2007 and the subsequent widespread adoption of smartphones led many to fear that phones were making it more difficult for people to communicate on a deeper, in-person level. Smartphone ownership for younger people was and still is a contentious issue, with some claiming that phones can have a negative effect on mental health or developing social skills. Meanwhile, long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad’s swim from Cuba to Florida at age 64 coincides with the novel’s climax. Nyad has done several long-distance swims, with her first attempt to swim from Cuba happening in 1978 when she was 28. She completed her successful swim in 2013.

One of the most influential writers of books about teenaged and preteen girls is Judy Blume; of her many books, Tiger Eyes shares many themes with The Thing about Jellyfish, including a focus on learning to live with grief. In the early to mid 2010s, there were several middle grade and young adult novels published that explore mental health in preteens. Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan was published the year before The Thing about Jellyfish and also features a 12-year-old girl who deals with grief. Other books featuring outcasts around that age include Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine, Wonder by R.J. Palacio,  and Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper. These books often explore young people’s experience with the medical system. In the case of Suzy in The Thing about Jellyfish, she sees a child psychologist who tries to help her understand grief. While fictional, The Thing about Jellyfish also includes several real facts about jellyfish and shares some things in common with popular science books. Benjamin mentions Bill Bryson’s book A Really Short History of Nearly Everything (the children’s version of his book A Short History of Nearly Everything) as a particular inspiration.