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1. Book Review
A Project
In English III
For One More Day
By: Mitch Albom
Marie Rose Domingo
III-St. Ignatius Of Loyola
February 3, 2014

2. A. Author
Mitch Albom is a bestselling author, nationally acclaimed newspaper
columnist for the Detroit Free Press, host of two popular radio shows and a television
commentator who regularly appears on ESPN’s Sports Reporters and ABC. His ten books
include Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and For One More Day. His
latest book, The Time Keeper, was published in the fall of 2012.
Tuesdays with Morrie is now the bestselling memoir of all time, with over 11 million copies sold
worldwide. Oprah Winfrey produced a major television movie for ABC based on Tuesdays with
Morrie starring Jack Lemmon and Hank Azaria. A phenomenon in its own right, the movie was
not only the most-watched on any network for that year, it also earned four Emmy Awards in
2000, including those for Best Actor (Lemmon) and Best Supporting Actor (Azaria). Albom,
along with playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, adapted the book into a hit play, which opened off -
Broadway late 2002. The play is currently being performed in regional theaters throughout
North America.
Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie story has been featured in many national publications,
including People magazine, Redbook, Life magazine, andTV Guide. Albom has also been
featured on several national television programs, including the Oprah Winfrey Show, NBC's

3. Today Show, the CBS Early Show, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose, Nightline and Good Morning
America.
Albom’s first novel, the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Five People You Meet in Heaven,
released in September 2003, has sold over 6.5 million copies in hardcover, marking it as the
bestselling first novel in hardcover ever. A touching story about the meaning and
interconnectedness of our lives, the novel received outstanding reviews across the
country. TIME magazine called it “a sad, sweet first novel “ and “a powerful book” in a full page
article on Albom in the October 13, 2003 issue. Publishers Weekly called it “sentimental and
profoundly true...a contemporary American fable that will be cherished by a vast readership.”
With a screenplay by Albom, the novel has been adapted into an ABC movie starring Jon Voight,
Ellen Burstyn and Jeff Daniels.
Albom's other books include Live Albom I (1987), Live Albom II (1990), Live Albom III (1992), Live
Albom IV (1995), BO, the autobiography of Bo Schembechler (co-written with Schembechler
and also a New York Times best seller), and Fab Five, the story of the University of Michigan's
famed men's basketball recruits who all became starters as freshmen during the early 1990's.
His novel, For One More Day (September 2006), centers on the relationship between mothers
and sons and the stresses divorce places on family ties. It entered The New York
Times bestsellers list at #1, was selected as the first title to be carried in Starbucks’ stores, and
went on to be the bestselling adult hardcover fiction release of 2006. In 2007 For One More
Day was adapted as a made for television movie for ABC starring award-winning actors Michael
Imperioli and Ellen Burstyn, once again with the backing of Oprah Winfrey’s production
company, Harpo Films. His latest book, Have a Little Faith, was #1 on the New York
Times bestseller list. In December 2011, Have A Little Faith will air as a made-for-television
movie.

4. In 2004, Mitch Albom made his debut as a solo playwright with Duck Hunter Shoots Angel, a
tender comedy about a tabloid journalist from NYC on a search for Alabama swamp poachers
who believe they shot a celestial being. His next play, And the Winner Is, was released in
2005. Ernie, his play about Ernie Harwell, the legendary sports broadcaster, recently premiered
in Detroit. He is also currently developing an hourlong TV show for cable network TNT.
A 2013 inductee of the Sportswriters Hall of Fame, Mitch Albom has been named #1 Sports
Columnist in the Nation by the sports editors of America (APSE) — the highest honor in his field
— 13 times in the last 15 years. He has also finished first in the APSE feature writing category
seven times in the last nine years. No other columnist has won the APSE award more than once.
During his storied career, Albom has received more than 100 writing awards from AP, UPI,
Headliners Club, National Sportswriters and Broadcasters Associations, and others.
His work has appeared in numerous national and international publications, including Sports
Illustrated, GQ, Sport, The New York Times, TV Guide, USA Today, and Germany's
popular GEO magazine, as well as on the Internet with MSNBC.
Albom also is a panelist on ESPN's The Sports Reporters, (seen every Sunday by a nationwide
audience,) and a weekly contributing commentator for ESPN radio. He also hosts two radio talk
shows on WJR-AM. He has been profiled by ABC News, NBC's Today Show, the CBS Early Show,
and ESPN's Up Close. Albom has also twice served as a network Olympic commentator, first for
ABC's Good Morning America during the Atlanta Games and for the CBS Early Show from the
Games in Sydney, Australia.
An accomplished songwriter and lyricist, Mitch Albom wrote the song "Cookin' For Two" for a
television movie directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger that aired in the mid-1990's. Recently, he
wrote the lyrics for a song recorded by singer/songwriter Warren Zevon, with David Crosby on
backup vocals and comedian David Letterman contributing some surprise vocals as well.

5. A Philadelphia native, Mitch Albom graduated from Brandeis University with a sociology major
and earned Master's Degrees in journalism and business administration from Columbia
University in New York City. His background includes stints as an amateur boxer and nightclub
singer and pianist. He once played as a warm-up act for comedian Gabe Kaplan.
Albom has founded seven charities, many in the metropolitan Detroit area: Several are located
in the Detroit area including: S.A.Y. Detroit, which operates a family health clinic; A Time to
Help, volunteer organization; and A Hole in the Roof Foundation, which repairs faith-based
homeless shelters. He also directs the Have Faith Haiti Mission in Port Au Prince, which helps
impoverished children and orphans.
Albom followed 2012’s The Time Keeper with the #1 New York Times best seller The First Phone
Call From Heaven in November 2013.
Mitch Albom is married and resides in Franklin, Michigan.

6. B. Elements
1. Settings
The story happened in Pepperville Beach Village. It is Chick Benetto’s hometown, the place
where he has built good and bad memories with his family.
In the Introduction, a baseball field is the setting for the scene that sets the stage for the action
of the novel to come. At first glance, the action here (the meeting between Chick and the
narrator introducing his story) is an encounter between strangers, and in a way, it is: at the
conclusion of the novel, it's revealed that the narrator is Chick's daughter Maria, from whom he
has been estranged for years. It's important to note that baseball fields are important settings
throughout the novel. First, for other encounters between estranged parents and children, in
particular between Chick and his father. Second, baseball fields are also the setting for
encounters between Chick and the truth about himself. Such fields are the places where he
both achieves his dreams and fails in maintaining them, and also when he discovers the truth
about
Question:
1. Why is the novel set in fictitious small towns?
 This is fictitious because this place where he has built good and bad memories with his
family.
2. Characters
Charles “Chick Benetto”: As a kid, he was forced to choose between his parents “father or
mother”. He is a strong, cocky athlete, muscular and tall; a good looking guy. Played Baseball,
always took for granted his mothers love and adore his dad.

7. Pauline “Posey Benetto”: Chick’s mother. She had large, almond-shaped eyes, dark and creamy
complexion, indeed a very attractive and candid woman, whom after being abandoned by her
husband, shortly after looses her nurse career, struggled to raise a family alone. She worked as
hairdresser and had to clean apartments to support a family. She died at the age of 79 years of
a heart attack.
Leonard “Len Benetto: Chick’s father. Len had an athletic figure, very good-looking and
stubborn man. Used to play baseball, and enlisted in the World War II. Also an owner of his own
business.
Catherine: Chick’s wife. She met Chick during college, when he was singing “This could be the
start of something good.
Maria: Chick’s daughter. She was born at the tail end of chick’s failed career. She had long
straight hair and full lips, just like her mother. She took on sports writing job at college.
Roberta: Chick’s young sister. As a kid, always very sweet girl that had a penchant for wearing
ballerina shoes everywhere she goes. When she became fifteen, she suggests that her mother
remarry.
3. Epilogue
1. Think about Charley’s Chapter before and after his “One More Day” with his mother. Has the
changed? How?
 I think Yes, because she didn’t tell her children how difficult her life was. She only
focused on how to take care of her children and give them a better future.
4. Personal Reflection or Learning
Through reading this book, I learned two life lessons. One is that maybe it really is true that we
don’t know what we got till it’s gone. From the book, I learned this lesson by Chick’s reaction
after his mother passed away and after he lost his family, his job… He was basically left with

8. nothing to lean on anymore; he lost the most important things in life. He drank most of his
time, didn’t sleep well and didn’t eat well. And looking back at what you have lost, most of the
time it would be too late to go back and change. So I learned to hold on to the ones I love and
care and make every moment the best because you wouldn’t want to be left with regrets in the
end.
The other lesson was learned based on one of Chick’s final thoughts, he wrote, “I feel ashamed
now that I tried to take my life. It is such a precious thing. I had no one to talk me out of my
despair, and that was a mistake. You need to keep people close. You need to give them access to
your heart.”(pg. 193) This paragraph touched me mainly due to how I felt yesterday. I felt really
stressed out and I tried to talk to my friends, but they didn’t make me feel any better so I just
ditched the chat and went off continue reading this book, just as I was up to this paragraph, I
thought, if I try to push them away from me, I am never going to feel any better. If you push
everything away, that will only pull you further away from your balance. The “balance” is all the
important things in life. So if say I ignore friends, fight with my family, give up putting efforts
into my work, I am going to lose balance and slowly lose grip and fall to rock bottom. So instead
of feeling depressed and stressed out, think again, is it because you are pushing other people
away, is it because you don’t give them access to your heart? Because I found out that was
exactly my problem for being so stressed after all. I would say, keep your hearts open to
anything because we are going to get hurt sometime in life, but if we stay strong, find our
balance, and keep everything important to you close by your side, you will realize that nothing
is ever that hard to get through.
5. Plot
The book's theme is mortality: it analyzes how people might react to the chance to have a dead
relative back for a day.
The book tells story of Charley "Chick" Benetto, a former baseball player who encounters a
myriad of problems with his career, finances, family and alcohol abuse. This leads him to
become suicidal. Charles goes on a drunken rampage and decides he is going to end his life in
his old home town, but when he misses the exit, he turns around driving down the wrong side
of the highway causing an accident, Benetto flees to his old home – his suicide attempt an
apparent failure – to see his mother, who had died eight years prior.
Benetto returns to his old family home, and spends one more day with his mother, where in a
number of previously unknown factors related to his difficult childhood and troubled
relationship with his father are revealed to him. His mother assists him in resolving his issues
and getting his life back on track. The day ends when Benetto regains consciousness at the
scene of the accident in a police officer's arms.

9. The book's epilogue describes how Benetto was inspired by his experience to quit drinking and
reconcile with family, including his daughter, Maria, before his death five years later. At the
end, Maria is revealed to have been the narrator of the story.
Questions:
1. Who narrates the story?
 The narrator is Maria Benetto Lang she is Charley’s daughter. The main narrator is
Charley.
2. Why did Charley try to kill himself?
 When he wasn’t invited to his daughter’s wedding, he finally see himself for what he is a
failure and a drunk. His despair and self-loathing push him towards suicide.
3. How did the narrator reveal important information about Charley’s life to you?
 The narrator gives us insight into Charley’s life, his childhood, his disappointments, his
anger, his dreams, by going back and forth between his memories, and the moments
with his mother.
4. What does the narrator mean by “Every Family Is A Ghost Story”?
 Every family is a ghost story it means that “The dead sit at our tables long after they
have gone."
6. Conflict
The story, For One More Day written by Mitch Albom, has many conflicts.The main character is
a boy who was closer to his father than his mother. His father then leaves and the boy's life
crumbles. He loses his family and career due to alcoholism. He then becomes suicidal. While
suicidal he decides to go to his childhood home and is surprisingly welcomed by his mother who
died years earlier.
7. Ending
Question:
1. If you are to spend One More Day with someone who would you choose? Why?