The book Izzy Willy Nilly by Cynthia Voigt is about a fifteen year old girl, Isobel, who’s life is drastically changed in one night. One night in high school Isobel, called Izzy by her friends, went to a party with a senior guy she had a crush on and he had had too much to drink but decided to drive her home anyways. They got in a bad car accident and Izzy ended up having her left leg amputated. For a cute fifteen year old cheerleader, this was a life changing event which would take a lot of strength to overcome. Most of her friends couldn’t find time to visit her in the hospital and ignored her once she finally returned to school but she became good friends with a new girl, Rosamunde, who was not popular among Izzy’s other friends.
Izzy had a self image in her head, she always saw Little Izzy in her mind as a fun energetic girl. When Izzy was happy she’d imagine Little Izzy doing back flips and hanging out with her friends smiling but after the accident, Little Izzy changed too. She changed into a girl who would fall on the floor and sit there crying. The reason for that is that Izzy wanted to sit and cry but felt it wouldn’t be socially accepted, primarily by her parents who never showed emotion. She felt she always had to be happy and pretend to be coping well with her situation when people were around but as soon as she was alone she would silently cry to herself because she knew everything was changing.
Izzy’s self concept before the accident was that she was a fun loving girl, an energetic cheerleader that got attention from all the boys. Her self concept changed as soon as she realized how different she would look with one leg missing. Her self esteem dropped because she had been so focused on her looks, now that she wasn’t the gorgeous cheerleader anymore, she felt like her life had very little meaning.
Rosamunde, a girl from Izzy’s school who was not well liked due to her character flaws and sense of style, started to visit Izzy in the hospital because she was able to see that Izzy’s friends were not acting like genuine friends. Rosamunde helped Izzy use active cognitive coping skills to convince herself that just because she didn’t look the same, she could still be the same person or even grow from the experience. Rosamunde helped Izzy feel comfortable enough with who she was to finally return to school and prepared her for how the students were going to react to her.
Not only did Rosamunde help Izzy to create a more positive self concept of herself before she went back to school, she also helped her through empowerment. Since Rosamunde had always experienced judgment from people at school because of the way she dresses, she was able to give good advice on how to deal with the people. She didn’t feel it was right of Izzy’s friends to act like they didn’t have time for her anymore, as if it was inconvenient for them that she was in the hospital for weeks.
Rosamunde also told Izzy that engaging in artistic creative activities will also help her feel better. Izzy designed her own stitching pattern because she had always wanted to but thought it would look bad and people would make fun of her for it but Rosamunde convinced her that doing something like that would actually help her so she did and her confidence grew because she felt that even though she’s technically crippled, she can still learn and grow in other areas of life.
Izzy faced a life changing event that no fifteen year old should have to deal with but the fact of life is that it happens and when it does, you need to find a way to cope with it. Although Izzy had a hard time with it at first, making self statements and creating her self concept to be very negative creating even a small social network with Rosamunde helped her through everything. She was able to use active cognitive coping skills with the help of Rosamunde’s empowerment techniques and artistic activities to increase her self esteem which in turn helped other people accept what had happened to her.
