49 pages • 1 hour read
Jacqueline WoodsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
At the outset of the book, Lonnie is quiet and withdrawn because he feels unloved and struggles with how others perceive him. The trauma of his parents’ deaths in a tragic fire haunts him, and he feels alone in the world. While in the group home before living with Miss Edna, he calls the other boys monsters because of how they treat him, but one day they dub him a “throwaway boy” just like them, saying, “You one of us now. / When the relatives stop coming // When you don’t know where your sister is anymore” (15). The word throwaway suggests unwanted or unneeded, something to be thrown away. Because these boys are without families, they feel this acutely, and so does Lonnie when he realizes that no one visits him anymore. In this moment he experiences utter isolation. Additionally, Lonnie battles stereotypes that others place on him as a Black boy. In “Mama,” he visits a drugstore to find the scent that reminds him of his mother but is cognizant of how he’s perceived: “And then I leave fast. / Before somebody asks to check my pockets / which are always empty ‘cause I don’t steal” (8). Most customers aren’t assumed thieves, but Lonnie expects the employees to view him this way, suggesting that he has faced such accusations before.
By Jacqueline Woodson
After Tupac and D Foster
Jacqueline Woodson
Another Brooklyn
Jacqueline Woodson
Before the Ever After
Jacqueline Woodson
Brown Girl Dreaming
Jacqueline Woodson
Harbor Me
Jacqueline Woodson
Hush
Jacqueline Woodson
If You Come Softly
Jacqueline Woodson
Miracle's Boys
Jacqueline Woodson
Red at the Bone
Jacqueline Woodson
The House You Pass on the Way
Jacqueline Woodson
African American Literature
View Collection
Beauty
View Collection
Books About Art
View Collection
Books & Literature
View Collection
Brothers & Sisters
View Collection
Childhood & Youth
View Collection
Class
View Collection
Class
View Collection
Community
View Collection
Coretta Scott King Award
View Collection
Education
View Collection
Family
View Collection
Friendship
View Collection
Grief
View Collection
Juvenile Literature
View Collection
Memory
View Collection
Mothers
View Collection
National Book Awards Winners & Finalists
View Collection
Order & Chaos
View Collection
Trust & Doubt
View Collection