69 pages • 2 hours read
Jason ReynoldsLook Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2019A 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.
Chapter 10-EpigraphChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Broom Dog”
The final chapter begins by discussing the symbolism of the school bus motif featured throughout each of the novel’s vignettes. The chapter starts by declaring that “A school bus is many things” (173). What follows is a list of various places, events, and images related to school and adolescence. The list culminates in what a school bus represents for Canton Post, the son of the school’s crossing guard. To Canton, a school bus represents “a thing that almost destroyed him. Almost made him motherless” (175).
Canton admires his mother and, from a young age, believed that “crossing guards, especially his mother, seemed to have special powers. They were able to stop moving things. Able to slow traffic” (176). Canton’s belief in the heroic nature of crossing guards whose “whistles blew some kind of magic tone that forced drivers to hit brakes” changed one year ago after an incident involving Kenzi Thompson and his blue handball. Kenzi’s blue bouncing ball fell into the street and Kenzi began “charging across the crosswalk, a school bus heading right toward him” (176). Ms. Post jumped into the street to save Kenzi but sustained injuries to her shoulder and hip. Although Ms. Post survived, “the whole thing was completely devastating to Canton” who was not present for the incident and had been chatting with the school’s custodian Mr. Munch (177).
Canton’s mother returns to work just one week later. Canton is overwhelmed with anxiety and fear surrounding his mother’s return to work. Mr. Munch discovers Canton in the bathroom after school with Canton’s chest “heaving like it was hard for him to breathe. Like it would break open” (178). Mr. Munch helps Canton calm down with some deep breathing and escorts Canton to his mother who hugged his mother “so tight that she winced, her shoulder still a sack of broken bone” (178).
The next day, Mr. Munch approaches Canton after his last class of the day. Mr. Munch asks Canton how he is feeling. The two wander through the school while Mr. Munch shares with Canton about his wife’s anxiety after their daughter left for college. Mr. Munch got an emotional support dog for his wife to help her feel better. Mr. Munch presents Canton with a fake dog he has made from the detached head of a broom. Mr. Munch encourages Canton to try to pet the dog when he is feeling anxious about his mother working outside. The next day, Canton watches his mother work and “whenever Canton’s chest would become an inflated balloon, he would run his fingers through the broom dog’s hair” (183). He names the broom dog Dusty.
A year later, Canton still uses Dusty the broom dog “and things have gotten better” (183). He returns to his post next to his mother and tells her about the homework assignment he needs to work on. His social studies teacher Mr. Davanzo asked students to “Write about place. Write about people. Human environmental interaction!” (184). As he watches his mother work, Canton begins to write in his notebook and “describe the environment around him” (185).
Canton records the various conversations and interactions he witnesses throughout the afternoon until his mother finishes for the day. As he gathers his belongings to head home, the broom dog falls “from his lap like he had forgotten it was there” (187). His mother remarks on how worn the broom dog has become in the year since Canton first started using it. She also notes how the broom dog no longer looks like a dog but “kinda looks like a bus” (187). Canton and his mother begin their walk home. She asks Canton if he still wants his broom dog. Canton contemplates his answer and begins tossing the broom dog in the air and catching it until “loose straw separated from the bunch […] and more loose straw, falling down on them” (188). Canton’s mother comments that it is “a school bus falling from the sky” (188).
Epigraph Summary
The epigraph features a quote from essayist Garnette Cadogan. It describes a journey that comes full circle from beginning to end. The epigraph states that what propels a journey is a longing or desire.
Chapter 10-Epigraph Analysis
This last chapter begins with an exploration of the school bus motif Reynolds weaves throughout each chapter. The first sentence is a simple declaration of the multiple meanings of this motif. Reynolds then proceeds to list a series of images that discuss the symbolism of the school bus in the context of this novel and in the greater context of adolescence. These meanings are simple and complex. Although seemingly contradictory, these meanings display the paradoxical nature of human experience. Reynolds writes, “A school bus is a safe zone. A school bus is a war zone” (173). While the school bus may represent safety and escape for one student, it may offer conflict and struggle for another. The duality of this symbol’s meaning connects to the novel’s title. Reynolds’s call to Look Both Ways asks his characters and readers to look beyond one interpretation and view an experience from more than one perspective.
Reynolds expresses this call for nuance through Canton Post’s story. Canton’s trauma over his mother’s accident confuses and overwhelms him initially. Upon hearing of his mother’s accident, he instantly feels like “his skin was crawling, felt like it was changing color, from brown to yellow. School bus yellow” (177). The school bus symbolizes his trauma and its insidious grasp over him. Canton becomes defined by this incident with the school bus.
Mr. Munch offers Canton a way to channel his anxiety. The broom dog Mr. Munch makes for Canton only holds the appearance and feeling of a dog. This is still powerful enough to help Canton escape his own panic and stay grounded. Canton uses the broom dog consistently for an entire year. It is only until he begins Mr. Davanzo’s homework assignment that he realizes that he no longer needs the broom dog. Canton begins to observe the people and places around him. This distracts him from his anxiety. Canton and Ms. Post are present in the background of each of the nine stories that precede theirs. Canton becomes a representation of Reynolds.
Throughout the novel, Reynolds documents the places and people of his inspired world. He zooms in on the human environmental interaction and constructs relatable characters who offer lessons in how to navigate life in full humanity. While each preceding chapter focuses on one street surrounding Latimer Middle School, Canton’s chapter is the only one stationed at a corner. His story is one that intersects each of the other stories. Reynolds accomplishes this through his inclusion of the motif of the school bus falling from the sky, as well as through the physical presence of Canton and Ms. Post glimpsed in each chapter.
In the end, Canton gives up his broom dog because it no longer serves its purpose. The broom dog also no longer resembles what it was originally supposed to resemble. Ms. Post remarks on how the broom dog now looks like a school bus. The school bus no longer represents the fear and trauma it once represented for Canton as “the broom dog had just become a thing he had, a thing he knew was there if he needed it, but it had been a long time, he just now realized, since he’d actually needed it” (187). As Canton and Ms. Post begin their own walk home, Canton recognizes the many meanings of the school bus and smiles, “knowing a school bus is many things. So is a walk home” (188).
The epigraph focuses on the journey of a single foot. The choice to highlight one individual journey mirrors the way in which Reynolds dedicates each chapter to one individual or relationship. The foot is anonymous, and the details of the journey are left unclear to allow for individual interpretations of what the journey may entail. The use of the collective “our” represents the universal nature of this journey. The longing that propels the journey forward is one that is universally experienced. The word momentum implies a sense of weight and speed. The longings that drive journeys toward their goal of rest give meaning to the journey. The use of the word “rest” implies a peace or balance that is achieved at the journey’s end. The journeys of Reynolds’s various characters are weighted by their unique longings. The peace or balance achieved at the end of each story is individual to each character. Reynolds does not offer one interpretation of what true peace looks like. He instead offers the opportunity for multiple interpretations to exist at the same time.
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