43 pages • 1 hour read
Aimee NezhukumatathilWorld of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2020A 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 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Catalpa Tree”
As a young girl, Nezhukumatathil finds shade under catalpa trees. Her mother warns her not to get “too dark”—not to let her skin tan—and there are many shady catalpas on the walk to her mother’s office at Larned State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Kansas. Catalpas are “one of the largest deciduous trees at almost sixty feet tall,” with “long bean pods and flat seeds with wings” (2). Their leaves are noisy in the wind, and they attract sphinx moths.
After school, the bus drops off Nezhukumatathil and her younger sister in front of the hospital, where they wait in a small office until their mother’s shift ends. Nezhukumatathil’s mother is the first doctor from her small village the Philippines, but in Kansas she endures many racist comments and microaggressions from families of patients. As a young adolescent, Nezhukumatathil never fully appreciates her mother’s stoicism. As an adult, she wonders, “How did she manage to leave it all behind in that office, switching gears to listen to the ramblings of her fifth- and sixth-grade girls?” (4).
Thirty years later, Nezhukumatathil observes the largest catalpa tree at the University of Mississippi, where she teaches. Its branches are so long they must be supported by metal struts. She contemplates how catalpa leaves provide shade and shelter. As an adult in a more diverse city, she no longer feels compelled to hide behind catalpa leaves.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Firefly”
Nezhukumatathil associates fireflies with memories of summer vacations as a child. While driving back from national parks, her father “loved to commute through the night, to avoid the summer glare and heat” (9), and she remembers seeing fireflies in roadside fields. Her father once stopped in the Smoky Mountains, where the family watched “the only species of synchronous firefly” (10), while Nezhukumatathil just wanted to return to their air-conditioned hotel. Now, she reflects on and cherishes the details of her family vacation memories.
Nezhukumatathil contrasts the firefly’s navigational techniques with those of indigo buntings, a type of bird. Fireflies are “more easily deceived” by man-made light sources (12), and light pollution has resulted in decreased firefly populations. Firefly larvae hunt for themselves, and most of a firefly’s two-year lifespan is spent underground. Scientists have not been able to explain the phenomenon of firefly synchronicity, wherein groups of male fireflies all flash at once.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Peacock”
On her first trip to India at age eight, Nezhukumatathil falls in love with peacocks. She chooses to draw a peacock for an animal-drawing contest in her third-grade class in Phoenix, Arizona, despite the school library’s lack of books on peacocks. As a reference, she writes, “Peacocks are the national bird of India” in her notebook (16). Nezhukumatathil draws a large, beautiful peacock, but her teacher tells her she has to start over because peacocks are not “American animals.” Nezhukumatathil is upset and instead draws a bald eagle with an American flag behind it.
At home that night, she yells at her father, “Why do we need to have these peacocks all over the house? Wooden peacocks, brass peacocks, a peacock painting—it’s so embarrassing!” (18)? Her father says nothing but removes them all the next day, except for their peacock-themed calendar. Nezhukumatathil’s drawing of the bald eagle wins the contest and is displayed in the school. For years, she no longer wants to draw birds: “I pretended I hated the color blue” (19). Speaking in the present tense at the end of the chapter, she reclaims her love of peacocks and the color blue.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Comb Jelly”
Nezhukumatathil recalls being given colorful “solid glass bracelets” at age four by her grandmother (20). She describes her family's house in Chicago during the winter, surrounded by high snowdrifts, and how she enjoyed watching the sunlight refract through her bracelets. The bracelets remind Nezhukumatathil of the comb jelly, a jellyfish-like creature with delicate “hair-like cilia” that refracts rainbows of color in the ocean as it moves (21).
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Chapters 1-4 introduce Nezhukumatathil’s vivid, descriptive style as well as several of the major themes that develop through World of Wonders. While many chapters include memories from different time periods in her life, the book is roughly chronological, and the first few chapters are centered around Nezhukumatathil’s childhood. Nezhukumatathil introduces her parents and sister, and she emphasizes her parents’ dedication and attentiveness, which she never fully appreciated as a child and which she hopes to replicate with her own children in later essays.
In “Catalpa Tree” and “Peacock,” Nezhukumatathil begins to explore her relationship to race and identity. For most of her childhood, she is one of very few Asian Americans in predominantly white communities. She and her family move several times. Her identity as the “new kid” in school exacerbates and symbolizes her racist treatment at school. “Catalpa Tree” and “Peacock” present distinct illustrations of loss of innocence. In “Catalpa Tree,” Nezhukumatathil only realizes years later how her mother was mistreated at the hospital. In “Peacock,” she is confused and upset when her teacher makes her start a new drawing. Nezhukumatathil thereby portrays the insidious means by which racial othering is imposed on children.
Her impulse as a self-conscious child is to draw inward, hide, and assimilate. The catalpa tree provides “shelter from unblinking eyes” (5), and after being humiliated by her teacher, she conforms by drawing “the most American thing [she could] think of” (17), a bald eagle. The peacock represents Nezhukumatathil herself and her Indian heritage—she loves bright colors and is naturally exuberant and proud but is misunderstood and rejected in drab, white suburban America. Both chapters, however, are concerned with growth and end with positive messages. “Catalpa Tree” concludes with professor Nezhukumatathil, who can’t wait to see the “beautiful faces” of her students, and “Peacock” ends on her repeated affirmation: “My favorite color is peacock blue” (19). As an adult, Nezhukumatathil has grown out of her childhood insecurities and into her identity as a vibrant, joyful adult.
“Firefly” and “Comb Jelly” introduce the theme of the value of memory. The glass bracelets Nezhukumatathil receives in “Comb Jelly” represent her heritage and connection to her grandmother. Nezhukumatathil is grateful for the family memories that fireflies spark for her and wishes she could preserve them: “Perhaps I can keep those summer nights with my family inside an empty jam jar, with holes poked in the lid” (14). Of course, this is impossible—the best she can do is write them down, and even then, they are fleeting, like the firefly’s light and lifetime above ground. She warns of decreasing firefly populations due to light pollution. Memory for Nezhukumatathil is both personal and expansive—she cherishes her own specific memories but also implies a collective, generational memory of the natural world.
Nezhukumatathil’s colorful and reverent language, along with many specific incidents throughout the book, establish wonder as a major theme. She takes time to vividly describe the plants and animals she encounters and expresses deep admiration for their biological habits and abilities. She loves the peacock’s “turquoise and jade feathers and bright blue necks” (15), and she is drawn to the “light-soaked color displays” of the comb jellies (21). “Comb Jelly” especially is an ode to Nezhukumatathil’s childhood experiences of wonder, which carry on into adulthood.
Related Titles
By Aimee Nezhukumatathil
