54 pages • 1 hour read
Katherine ApplegateWillodeen
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Chapter Summaries & Analyses
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Themes
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BetaPart 2, Chapters 12-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary
Prior to Chapter 12, there is another introductory section from the screecher’s perspective. The creature starts to explore her world, learning to walk and discovering how vision works. She sees nearby trees with blue and silver leaves and sits beneath one, knowing instinctually that they are important. Though she rests, she doesn’t close her eyes because deep down she knows that “the world is a dangerous place” (60).
Chapter 12 takes place the morning after Sir Zurt’s death, which is Willodeen’s 11th birthday. Mae and Birdie made her a cake even though they don’t have the resources to splurge on such frivolities, and Willodeen appreciates the cake. Willodeen goes outside to collect logs for a fire, and she finds one of Connor’s creations on the rocking chair. It’s a screecher made of grass, weeds, mud, and other natural materials. Willodeen normally doesn’t care much for things that don’t have a purpose, but this creation makes her happy in a way she can’t explain. She doesn’t know why Connor made it for her, but she keeps it because she “needed it to be mine” (66).
Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary
Willodeen, Mae, and Birdie have the cake for breakfast. The women light a candle on the cake and tell Willodeen to make a wish. This makes Willodeen cry angry tears over how complicated everything is, and Birdie and Mae insist that angry tears have magic. Willodeen isn’t sure she believes them. She can’t think of a wish to make, so she thinks “if only angry tears really did hold magic” and then eats her cake (70).
Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary
After having cake, Willodeen goes back outside to gather eggs, where she finds Connor petting one of the goats. She thanks him for the gift and is perplexed and annoyed that he doesn’t immediately leave afterward. Mae and Birdie invite him inside to ask about his creations. Connor says that he enjoys making them but there probably isn’t much call for them in the world.
Connor is on his way to a town council meeting. His father is on the council and likes for Connor to go even though Connor has little interest. Mae and Birdie suggest Willodeen go to the meeting with him. Willodeen thinks they may as well have told her to “borrow a pair of wings and fly to the moon” (80).
Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary
Mae and Birdie want Willodeen to protest the bounty on the screechers. Willodeen objects and says no one will listen, but Mae and Birdie tell her to go anyway and “do something useful with all that anger” (83). Grudgingly, Willodeen goes, taking the screecher Connor made with her.
Part 2, Chapter 16 Summary
On their way to the meeting, Connor asks Willodeen if she thinks his creations are odd. Willodeen does, but she adds that being different isn’t a bad thing, which makes Connor lapse into thoughtful silence. At the hall, Willodeen gets nervous and doesn’t want to go inside. Connor says it’s all right that she’s afraid, and Willodeen sprints up the stairs and into the hall. She knows she’s afraid, but “there was no way anyone else needed to know” (90).
Part 2, Chapters 12-16 Analysis
Mae and Birdie insist angry tears hold magic, but Willodeen doesn’t believe them because she doesn’t believe in things she deems impractical. This conversation about birthday tears foreshadows the book’s coming magic; since Willodeen’s angry tears seem to bring Quinby to life in later chapters, it appears that angry tears may be magic after all. It may also be that Willodeen’s birthday wish came true and imbued her angry tears with magic that allowed them to bring Quinby to life. Wherever the magic comes from, bringing Quinby to life is the first step toward Willodeen learning to trust and care about others. In turn, the magic brings Willodeen back to life by restoring her ability to love and her desire to have others in her life, things that were destroyed in the fire that killed her family.
Mae and Birdie’s insistence that Willodeen attends the meeting has two purposes. First, they want Willodeen to learn to stand up for herself and speak her mind, even if doing so makes her uncomfortable. Second, they see how Willodeen is different around Connor, and they want to encourage these changes because they seem good for Willodeen. Mae and Birdie are not Willodeen’s parents, but they care for Willodeen as if she was their child, which reinforces how anyone can become our family. Willodeen’s eagerness to attend the meeting after Connor tells her it’s all right to be scared shows how Willodeen is still hiding her emotions. She isn’t willing to appear afraid and so does something that terrifies her to cover up her emotions. Attending the meeting is also a better option than returning home, both because she doesn’t want to let Mae and Birdie down and because she doesn’t want them to know she’s scared.
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By Katherine Applegate
