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76 pages 2 hours read

Jason Reynolds

As Brave As You

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2016

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Chapters 19-21 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 19 Summary

Brooke drinks more heavily during his nighttime walks with Genie. About a week before the boys are due to leave, Brooke asks Genie to take him to another part of the yard. They accidentally startle Samantha, who barks at them. Sneaking back inside, they find Genie’s grandmother waiting for them. She chastises Brooke for drinking and for going outside so late, and when Brooke tries to evade her by going to bed, she throws the dismantled pieces of his gun into the trashcan. Distraught, Brooke tries to dig them out before giving up and weeping, with his wife comforting him.

Chapter 20 Summary

The next morning, Genie’s grandparents apologize to him about what happened the night before. Genie tells Ernie about his nighttime walks with Brooke. Ernie is still worried about going to the dentist, but Brooke comes into the boys’ bedroom and reassures Ernie about Binks. He also gives Ernie his own sunglasses to replace ones that broke during Ernie’s shooting accident. When Brooke takes his glasses off, Genie is intrigued and somewhat repulsed by his grandfather’s blind eyes, which remind him of clouds or ice.

Chapter 21 Summary

While Ernie and his grandmother are at the dentist, Genie and Tess go out and check the bird trap. To Genie’s amazement, there’s a barn swallow trapped in it, but when he and Tess maneuver it out of the trap, he accidentally lets it go. Crushed, Genie spends some time alone on the porch with Brooke. Genie asks his grandfather about the house in the woods. As his grandfather starts to tell the story, Crab stops by with liquor and flies for Brooke and the birds. Brooke tells him to take the liquor away.

Brooke and Genie go inside, where Brooke gets settled in the house’s living room—a room Genie’s never seen him in. Brooke tells Genie a story about Genie’s great-grandfather, Brooke’s father. Brooke’s father was a sharecropper. One day, when his boss, a local man named Bristol, demanded to know who stole one of his dog’s puppies, Brooke’s father betrayed a friend by telling the landowner that his friend took the puppy. Not satisfied with firing both of them, the landowner set the friend’s house on fire—and the friend died because of the fire. Brooke’s father built the birdcages in the old house’s yard from scraps from the friend’s house; he later committed suicide partly out of guilt over his friend’s death.

Genie tries to work up the courage to confess about the dead bird to his grandfather, but his parents unexpectedly show up a few days early to get him and Ernie. After anxiously examining his mother’s face, Genie concludes that his parents are likely to stay together, although no one ever explicitly brings up the subject. While the boys and their mother pack their things, Genie’s dad and Brooke fight over what happened to Wood and then reconcile. Genie’s grandmother is touched that Genie tried to fix the toy truck, so she gives it to Genie. Ernie leaves his chipped tooth as a good-luck charm for his grandparents.

Right before the family leaves to drive back to Brooklyn, Genie gets a moment alone with Brooke and confesses. Brooke says that he’s known that the bird died for weeks, hearing the difference between four and five birds in the room. Brooke doesn’t seem to be angry about the bird. Genie, who has never liked seeing the birds in cages, asks him if he would ever let the other birds go. Brooke says that he’ll consider it. The book ends with Genie finding the broken piece of the toy fire-truck’s wheel. 

Chapters 19-21 Analysis

The novel’s storylines close with a sense of hope and optimism. Secondary plot threads end well: There is an implication that Genie’s parents have managed to resolve their marital difficulties, relieving Genie of his fear of their divorce; and Ernie’s checkup with Binks goes well, lessening the impact of the accident.

The novel’s primary plot, featuring Brooke’s fears about the outside world, his guilt over his actions in his relationships with his sons, and his somewhat unhealthy coping mechanisms (his attachment to his gun, reliance on sunglasses to hide his eyes, and drinking), also resolves. When his wife throws away the pieces of his gun, Brooke’s sorrow about his attachment to his past and his grief at losing an aspect of his identity to age comes to a head. The gun no longer symbolizes Brooke’s wartime prowess—instead, it has come to be a danger to his family. Discarding the gun, an object that was once so important to his sense of self, helps Brooke face the pain and expand his ideas about safety and bravery. Healing, Brooke loosens his hold on the spaces and objects that were once the only things that helped him feel safe: He gives Ernie his sunglasses, moves from the sunroom to the living room, and rejects the liquor that Crab brings him. Brooke’s self-acceptance echoes in his willingness to consider letting the birds out of their cages, a gesture that expresses freedom, progress, and new possibilities.

Key to the novel’s ending is the scene when Brooke and the boys’ father finally confront each other over Wood’s death, a long overdue conflict that allows them to mend their relationship rather than being stuck in anger, grief, and guilt. Throughout the book, Reynolds has explored various forms of guilt, love, and grief in close bonds between men: brothers, fathers and sons, and friends. The conflict between Brooke and the boys’ father encapsulates all these conflicts and wraps up the book’s theme on an optimistic note.

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