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Trauma and Trust
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Orbiting Jupiter, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Orbiting Jupiter represents true friendship not as a casual social bond but as an intense, loving relationship that involves supporting and sacrificing for one’s friends. 12-year-old Jack Hurd wants to be friends with his 14-year-old foster brother Joseph Brook. When their school bus driver Mr. Haskell insults Joseph, Joseph storms off the bus—and Jack goes too, even though it means walking to school in the cold. That is, Jack sacrifices his own physical comfort to show support for Joseph after a prejudiced adult is cruel to him. A little later, when Joseph falls through thin ice on a cold, fast-flowing river, Jack risks his own life to save Joseph’s, demonstrating that friendship demands bravery and potential self-sacrifice as well as emotional support. Meanwhile, when Joseph’s abusive father Mr. Brook shows up drunk at the Hurd house to kidnap Joseph and threatens Jack with a gun, Joseph goes quietly with his father so that Mr. Brook will leave Jack alone. Though Joseph cannot foresee that leaving with his father will lead to his own death, he clearly recognizes that he is putting his own life at risk by going with his father, yet he does so anyway in order to protect Jack. At Joseph’s funeral, Jack reflects that Joseph “wasn’t just [his] friend” but someone who “had his back,” and that this is the true meaning of “love.” Thus, the novel suggests that friendship involves not only socializing but mutual support, protection, self-sacrifice, and real love.
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Friendship and Love ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Friendship and Love appears in each chapter of Orbiting Jupiter. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Friendship and Love Quotes in Orbiting Jupiter
Below you will find the important quotes in Orbiting Jupiter related to the theme of Friendship and Love .
Chapter 1
Quotes
“I respect your parents, I really do. They’re trying to make a difference in the world, bringing kids like Joseph Brook into a normal family. But kids like Joseph Brook aren’t always normal, see? They act the way they do because their brains work differently. They don’t think like you and I think. So they can do things . . .”
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Chapter 2
Quotes
The winter I was six, I saw a yellow dog on thin ice on the Alliance. I was with my mother, and we were walking back from a breakfast potluck at First Congregational before it became old First Congregational. The yellow dog was out farther on the ice than Joseph, but not much, and it had fallen through and its eyes were huge and it was grabbing on with its front paws, scratching, looking for something to hold onto. It wasn’t making a sound. I told my mother we had to go get it, but she held my arm so I wouldn’t go down to the river.
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“He came onto the ice for me,” said Joseph.
My father turned his face slowly toward Joseph. “That’s what we’ll be talking about,” he said.
Chapter 4
Quotes
“I’m alone,” he said.
“You’ve got me,” I said.
He laughed, but not a happy laugh. “Jackie, I’m a whole lifetime ahead of you,” he said.
Chapter 5
Quotes
“No one’s ever had my back before.”
Chapter 7
Quotes
“The boy isn’t your brother?” he said.
“I have his back,” I said
Chapter 8
Quotes
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
And that’s when I started crying. Crying like a kindergarten kid in front of everyone. Crying because Joseph wasn’t just my friend.
I had his back.
And he had mine.
That’s what greater love is.
Chapter 9
Quotes
“Jackie,” said Jupiter.
“That’s right,” I said. “Jackie.”
