84 pages • 2 hours read
Katherine ApplegateCrenshaw
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 8-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
That evening, Jackson’s mother gives him and Robin a grocery bag and instructs them to fill it with their keepsakes. The parents are planning to sell all non-essentials at a yard sale to raise money for back rent and water use. Their mother explains to Robin that keepsakes are treasured objects, like her guitar and books, “because those were always important” (34).
That night, Jackson’s parents read Robin her favorite book, The House on East 88th Street, about a crocodile called Lyle who enjoys baths and dog walking. Watching his parents and Robin snuggling together on her mattress with the book, Jackson feels separate from them. He has just read a book about reptiles and tells them that crocodiles probably would not enjoy baths. His dad tells him “to go with the flow”; Robin asks what Jackson’s favorite book was at her age (36). Her mother replies that he liked A Hole is to Dig, which Jackson points out is “more like a dictionary than a made-up story” (36).
He asks his father if he bought the purple jelly beans. He did not. Jackson’s mother asks Robin if she got them from the birthday party she attended earlier. Robin reiterates that she did not, insisting that the jelly beans were magic. Jackson says there is no such thing. His mother replies that music is magic, his father replies that love is magic, and Robin says that rabbits in a hat are magic. As Jackson leaves the room to collect his keepsakes, Robin, Sara, and Tom continue exchanging ideas about what is magic.
Chapter 9 Summary
Jackson admits that though he loves his parents and sister, they have “been getting on [his] nerves” lately (39). His sister’s annoying habits are down to her being a child, but his feelings about his parents are more complicated. Their persistent optimism and reticence to engage hard questions frustrates him. He wants them to be honest with him, but they insist on always looking at the bright side. For example, when Jackson’s father was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and had to quit his job building houses, he said he was tired of “listening to hammering all day long” anyway (41).
At a neighborhood potluck dinner the previous year, Aretha ate a disposable diaper, which resulted in an expensive veterinarian visit. After, his mother fretted about the cost, noting that the rent would be late. When Jackson asked if they had enough money to pay their bills, his father told him not to worry. They were “financially challenged” because the future is impossible to predict (42). After that, his parents joked about what they would buy if they won the lottery, and Jackson understood that they wanted to change the subject and did not want to give him “hard answers” (42).
Chapter 10 Summary
Lying in bed, Jackson thinks about the keepsakes he put in his bag: photos, a spelling bee trophy, nature books, the book A Hole is to Dig, his teddy bear, and a clay statue he made of Crenshaw in second grade. He thinks about seeing Crenshaw on the surfboard and the purple jelly beans. He thinks about the signs he has been noticing: piles of unpaid bills, his parents whispering and arguing, not enough food, the power being shut off for two days, personal items like the family computer being sold, and the landlord shaking his head and apologizing.
It does not make sense to Jackson since his mother has three part-time jobs and his father two. His mother taught music at a middle school, but her job was cut. His father runs a handyman business but often has to cancel appointments when he is ill. Jackson wants to believe that his parents have a plan, but when he asks them, they say they might plant a money tree in the backyard or start a rock band and win a Grammy award. Jackson does not want to leave their apartment because he loves the neighborhood, his friends, and his school, but he can “feel it coming, even if nobody said anything” because he has seen these same signs before (46).
Chapters 8-10 Analysis
Chapters 8-10 move deeper into the reality of the family’s financial troubles. Jackson and Robin are given an opportunity to put away a few treasured personal items, but everything non-essential, from furniture to crockery, will be sold in a yard sale.
Seeing his parents and Robin snuggling together and reading a book makes Jackson feel isolated from them because they seem unconcerned by events that are causing him anxiety and stress. The more the outside world presses in on Jackson, the more he wants to retreat into a world of certainty and facts. His parents and Robin, however, retreat into the whimsy of The House on East 88th Street, where a giant crocodile can become a beloved family member. Jackson attempts to shatter the illusion and bring them back to reality by sharing reptile facts. Instead of being frustrated, his parents respond by sharing examples of what they call magic: music and love, neither of which is tangible but instead is experienced. Robin’s examples of magic are more literal—rabbits in a magician’s hat, jelly beans that have no apparent source (though later she will reveal that she did bring them home from the birthday party).
Jackson’s keepsakes reveal the tension within him between fact and fancy. He keeps his favorite childhood book, A Hole is to Dig, which he sees as a proto-dictionary, since it explains what things are for, but he also keeps a statue he made of Crenshaw. He feels sadness at everything he will have to give up if he is accurately reading the signs—Crenshaw’s reappearance in his life, stacks of unpaid bills, his parents arguing, personal items being sold. He also feels frustration that he cannot understand why his family does not have enough money since his parents have five part-time jobs between them. He wants to believe in his parents, but their responses to his concerns are so unrealistic (a money tree, a Grammy-award-winning record) that he struggles to trust them.
Jackson refers to his parents as optimists who always look on the bright side, but they do so in a way that he finds dishonest because they ignore or deny harsh realities, as when his father assures him everything will be fine. Conversely, Jackson accepts that other people have it worse than he and his family do while also accepting that his situation is still difficult to live through. While Jackson’s journey is to accept the value of whimsy, his parents’ journey is to acknowledge their children’s feelings of anxiety and fear. Parents cannot always dictate outcomes and ensure their children’s security, but they can help prepare them by being honest, as Jackson’s parents do at the end of the book.
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