48 pages • 1 hour read
Cynthia KadohataCracker
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Cracker, a dog, plays with a bird carcass and then chases a mouse. Her owner, 10-year-old Willie, finds her, and they return home.
Because Willie’s family has moved into an apartment that doesn’t allow dogs, they must rehome Cracker. Willie holds his dog close, feeling a sense of dread at the idea. He overhears his parents arguing about the Vietnam War: His father supports it, whereas his mother is against it. Willie gets into bed and thinks about Cracker’s future; she is being sent to a dog-training school, after which she will go to Vietnam.
The next morning, Cracker feels uneasy at her family’s strange behavior. Willie hugs her tightly and then runs from the house, not pausing to wave goodbye. Willie’s mother pats Cracker more than usual, telling her that she is a wonderful dog.
Cracker goes to sleep and then hears Willie’s parents and a strange man coming inside. Willie’s father puts a muzzle and leash on her and pulls her out, and then gives the leash to the strange man. Cracker starts to snarl and lunge at the man, but he pulls on the leash, and everything goes black as Cracker briefly hangs from her neck.
Chapter 2 Summary
Willie runs into the apartment and demands to be given the leash. Cracker strains toward him. His parents remind him that he is making it harder for Cracker and that she will be a war hero. Willie, devastated, relents, and Cracker is led away by the man.
Chapter 3 Summary
Cracker, a German Shepard, came from a line of show dogs. She originally belonged to Willie’s uncle. As a puppy, she was a successful show dog, but a broken leg ended her show career. After this, Willie’s uncle gave the dog to Willie. Willie called her Firecracker and doted on her.
Her current location, in a crate in a van, is a far cry from her usual life of luxury, and she howls. She is carried onto a train. The men carrying her discuss the fact that the dogs taken to Vietnam will likely die and will be left there even if they survive.
Cracker is given injections, and her ear is tattooed. She is put in another truck, and men struggle to corral her into a kennel. Other dogs are taken out to be exercised, but Cracker is furious at being separated from Willie and snarls and bites viciously at anyone who comes into her kennel. The men bet on whether she will pass training or be put down.
Chapter 4 Summary
Rick Hanski enlists in the Army on his 17th birthday. His parents had assumed that he would take over the family hardware store, and Rick feels guilty that he is not interested in following this path. Rick’s sister is highly intelligent; she studies mathematics at the university. Though Rick is known for his polite manners and good work ethic, he feels frustrated that very little is expected of him. A math teacher tells him that he is a generalist rather than a specialist when he doesn’t do well in an exam he studied hard for. He longs to prove himself. In spite of his doubts, his father relents and signs the paperwork that allows Rick to sign up for the Army.
In the Army, Rick is disciplined for a lack of tact and diplomacy after refusing to give a senior officer $10 and getting into fistfights with other soldiers. He knows a friend who is involved in dog training and manages to get transferred to this unit. He is allocated Cracker, known to be the most aggressive and difficult to manage of the dogs (as well as one of the largest), by a senior officer who resents Rick’s allegedly disrespectful manner.
Initially, Cracker lunges at Rick when he tries to enter her kennel. After Rick sneaks into her kennel and gives her pieces of sausage, she allows him to touch her ears. However, Rick struggles with Cracker during training; she refuses to listen to him, although Cody, another training soldier who has a lot of experience with dogs, manages to make her heel obediently. Rick almost agrees to have Cracker “cycled out,” which means she would return to civilian life or be put down, but he receives letters from Willie, who enthuses about what a well-behaved dog she is and how she knows 90 words. He persists despite his frustration over the fact that they are one of the worst pairs in training.
One night, Rick goes to see Cracker, and she escapes from her kennel. Rick follows her and begins to instruct her to run to “trees”—a word she knows. He is elated by her obedience and exuberance. She notes the genuine tone in his voice when he praises her. After this, Rick and Cracker become one of the best pairs in training.
Rick is disciplined by his sergeant for yawning during training; the sergeant, whom the men call U-Haul, reminds him that yawning in Vietnam will lead to his death. Rick is told to do 20 push-ups while Cracker watches, seemingly laughing at him.
Chapter 5 Summary
Cracker now enjoys her training with Rick; she senses that they are doing something important, especially when she identifies risks and threats in the field. They are one of the best pairs at the base. Still, Rick thinks that U-Haul has a personal vendetta against him.
Rick continues to grow closer to Cody and Twenty-Twenty, another fellow soldier. The three men teach their dogs to do a coordinated dance, but they are disciplined for misusing Army equipment. Rick receives weekly letters from his family, which he replies to, as well as weekly letters from Willie, which he does not answer—he doesn’t want to give the boy false hope that he will get Cracker back.
Chapter 6 Summary
They embark on a week of training, during which they travel across territory where personnel and booby traps have been planted. Rick thinks that he and Cracker are the best soldier and dog pair, and he is determined to prove it. U-Haul presents a chicken, which many of the dogs—including Cracker—start lunging toward. Rick struggles to reign Cracker in. U-Haul reminds the men that they must control their dogs’ prey drive. They review the principles of airborne scent detection. The dogs should identify targets by sniffing the air rather than the ground, as ground-based tracking is likely to lead the dog and handler to stumble into an enemy, rather than identifying their direction from afar.
A group of men and dogs are driven in a truck to a swampy area. U-Haul angrily asks Rick whether he thinks he is “smart” or “dumb.” Unsure how to answer, Rick tells his sergeant that “Cracker and I are going to whip the world” (78).
Rick enters the exercise grounds and orders Cracker to search. He is annoyed when she points to a bird in a tree. His pack is heavy, and the conditions are hard; he considers that it will be far harder in Vietnam. Cracker successfully leads Rick to a man hiding in the brush. Next, Cracker senses a trip wire; she leads Rick to it, pawing at him to discourage him from moving forward. Rick, confused, moves forward to understand what she has found but, in doing so, trips the wire. U-Haul tells him that if he makes the same mistake in Vietnam, he will have his legs blown off. Rick is disappointed with himself for letting himself and Cracker down. He praises Cracker for her great work, but she senses his dejection.
Chapter 7 Summary
The men and dogs wait on a nearby grassy hill for each team to have a turn navigating the swampy terrain. U-Haul tells Rick that he should not be using mosquito repellent as “Charlie can smell it” (85). They eat their rations as they wait. Rick considers the fact that while he and Cracker made one mistake, other teams made many. He wonders if the day will come when Cody and Bruno make a mistake while he and Cracker do not.
The teams lie down to rest for the night. A fellow soldier asks the U-Haul about Vietnam. U-Haul describes the endless rain and the heat. He describes a man who was a star swimmer drowning on a hilltop. Later, Rick asks the sergeant whether this story is true; he cryptically replies that Rick has a lot to learn.
Chapter 8 Summary
The men of the 67th Infantry Platoon (Scout Dogs) stand at their awards ceremony on their last day of training. Cracker senses Rick’s uncertainty and anticipation. Cody and Twenty-Twenty win the first and second-place awards, and Rick is disappointed. Rick prays that they will all make it home from Vietnam alive.
Cody, Twenty-Twenty, and Rick wrestle in the mud good-naturedly. Rick continues to assert that he and Cracker will be the best team in Vietnam.
Chapters 1-8 Analysis
The opening chapter depicts Cracker’s adoration of her first owner, Willie, and the strength of their bond. This bond establishes the recurring theme of Companionship and Loyalty, particularly between people and their dogs. Kadohata conveys the strength of Willie and Cracker’s bond through Cracker’s intimate understanding of Willie’s routines and emotions. She waits for Willie at the window every afternoon after school—“she always knew when he was coming home, even when he was early” (15)—and senses her owner’s emotions: “Cracker felt Willie’s unhappiness and whined” (3). The love and protection Cracker provides makes Willie feel “invincible as he walk[s] with” her (3). Dwelling on Willie and Cracker’s interconnectedness serves two purposes in the narrative. First, it drives home the devastation of both boy and dog at their separation: “[T]he last thing Willie saw was a glimpse of her frightened brown eyes […] When the van drove off, Willie watched until he couldn’t see it anymore” (17). Willie and Cracker feel frightened and bereft without each other. Second, their emotions foreshadow the feelings Rick and Cracker will experience when they are separated from each other in Vietnam.
The opening chapters also establish War and Conflict as an important theme. Willie reflects on the Vietnam War, which his parents argue about. Kadohata communicates the contentious nature of the Vietnam War, which divided public opinion in America, through references to Willie’s parents’ arguments and the public protests reported on TV: “[T]here were several hundred thousand American troops in Vietnam, and every day the news reported protests against the war” (5). The domestic conflicts Willie observes foreshadow the opposition Rick will face when he returns home from Vietnam. Through these discussions, Willie learns that the “U.S. Army needed German shepherds and Labs to go to Vietnam” (8), leading to Cracker’s later deployment to Vietnam with her new trainer and owner, Rick.
While training at Fort Benning, Rick and Cracker begin to experience the challenges they will face in Vietnam. They begin to reckon with the difficulty of navigating jungle terrain with a heavy pack while trying to identify enemy troops or booby traps. As Rick struggles with “swamp water and sweat [dripping] into his eyes” and a pack that “weighed fifty-five pounds, less than he would carry most days in Nam, but it already felt heavy,” Cracker attempts to navigate both new territory and new tasks, “wad[ing] through the swamp, thinking of only one thing now: the smell to the left” (79). The high stakes of Rick and Cracker’s job are emphasized when U-Haul tells Rick that the wire he tripped would have blown his legs off had he been in Vietnam. Rick’s fear and apprehension for his upcoming tour is clear in his prayer: “[H]e prayed that all twenty-four soldiers of the 67th IPSD would be DORESed in one piece” (96). (DORESed means date of expected return from overseas). By including these scenes, Kadohata establishes the narrative tension by describing the dangers of warfare. She also uses these scenes to develop and deepen Rick and Cracker’s characters and relationships.
Tension builds toward the awards ceremony, in which Rick is disappointed not to receive an award. Nevertheless, Rick insists that “Cracker and I are gonna be the best dog team in Vietnam” (96). Their strength as a team but lack of recognition set up the narrative conflict. The pair will have to prove themselves on the battlefield to get Rick’s desired recognition. Willie writes to Rick asking whether his beloved and much-missed dog is “the best dog in training” (51). Rick reflects that she is far from it, but over time, Rick and Cracker’s bond strengthens, and their performance improves: “[T]raining got better and better. Rick started lying in bed thinking about the day’s triumphs instead of the day’s failures” (55). Kadohata uses juxtaposition to track Cracker’s progress; Rick’s frustrated musings contrast against his increasingly positive reflections. Additionally, Willie’s continued presence in the narrative emphasizes the role of love in the story, in contrast to the military’s view of the dogs as “equipment.”
Rick is hungry for recognition and success, not just for Cracker, the unruly but intelligent dog he grows to love, but also for himself. Rick’s community believes that he will amount to little. Compared to his sister, who is intelligent and highly qualified, Rick’s family sees him as thoroughly average. They assume that he will take over the family-run hardware store; Rick’s father explains to a friend that Rick’s “sister ha[s] a calling, whereas Rick [is] a ‘good, strong, well-mannered boy’” (29). Rick feels demeaned by this description, which he believes is lackluster, and is frustrated that his family continually underestimates him. Determinedly, Rick resolves that “Rick Hanski was going to whip the world” (32). His Ambition for Greatness intensifies, and he sees his partnership with Cracker as the means to prove his worth.
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