34 pages • 1 hour read
Kimberly Willis HoltMy Louisiana Sky
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1998A 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
This first chapter introduces all the main characters and several of the supporting characters. Tiger Ann Parker is turning 13 and lives in rural Saitter, Louisiana with her mother, Corrina; her father, Lonnie; and her grandmother, whom she calls Granny. Both of Tiger’s parents have intellectual disabilities. Her mother’s sister, Aunt Dorie Kay, is visiting from Baton Rouge. Tiger’s best friend, Jesse Wade Thompson, is over at her house as well. When Aunt Dorie Kay buys a television and has it delivered, Granny is judgmental about it. However, Tiger is elated because her family is decidedly working-class, and the television seems like an extraordinary luxury.
Chapter 2 Summary
At church, Tiger feels embarrassed by her mother, who is the object of teasing; Corrina talks unusually loudly, and the congregation laughs. Corrina joins in the laughter, but Tiger believes the congregation’s laughter was mocking, not affectionate. Tiger also feels embarrassed by her grandmother, who sleeps during the service. After the service, the community gathers for a picnic. Tiger is a talented baseball player, but, at the picnic in the middle of a ball game, she makes the abrupt decision to stop playing after realizing she is the only girl in town who still does; she leaves in the middle of the game. She feels heartbroken to give up her beloved activity, but she is desperate to fit in with the other girls. Corrina gets a splinter running after young boys who were teasing her, and the group leaves the picnic after a thunderstorm arrives—a storm only Lonnie predicted.
Chapter 3 Summary
Tiger helps her grandmother with chores and reflects on how her mother is different, both from her Aunt Dorie Kay and from the other mothers in town. Jesse Wade comes over to convince Tiger to start playing baseball again. She bats impressively one final time, but she sticks to her decision and leaves open the gate to the chicken coop while retrieving the baseball. Later that night, her grandmother realizes that all 20 of the chicks she just bought were eaten by opossums, and she tells Tiger that she will have to work to buy more.
Chapter 4 Summary
Tiger, her grandmother, and her mother visit the Thompsons’ house to work in the fields. The Thompsons own a greenhouse and are one of the wealthiest families in town, and Tiger’s father, Lonnie, works at their plant nursery (he is known as the hardest worker there, making Tiger proud). Tiger dislikes the hard work but understands its importance, and she judges her friend Jesse Wade for not working. Tiger is relieved and exhausted at the end of their day of work.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Most of the major themes, symbols, and motifs are introduced in these beginning chapters of the novel.
The idea of judgment, especially in the face of difference, is present in the novel from the very beginning. When the family goes to church, other townspeople judge them because Corrina, Tiger’s mother, is noticeably different. When Corrina makes a comment audible to the entire church, Tiger recounts that “[t]he congregation roared. Momma began to laugh too, only I don’t think she knew they were laughing at her” (21). This judgmental attitude toward Tiger’s parents’ differences persists throughout much of the novel, and it even extends to Tiger, who differs from the other girls in town because of her socioeconomic class and her tomboyish tendencies.
These first chapters also introduce the natural world that defines the setting, rural Saitter. Tiger’s father, Lonnie, is extremely adept at reading subtle signals in the natural world to predict the weather and other phenomena. This is later vital to the climax of the novel, when Lonnie is the only one who realizes that Saitter will be hit by a nearby hurricane.
The idea of work as healing and important also appears for the first time in these early chapters. Tiger is elated when she hears that her father is the “hardest worker” (40) at the plant nursery, taking this as proof of her father’s competence. Later, Tiger judges her best friend, Jesse Wade, thinking to herself that he is “spoiled rotten” because, despite his good manners, “he’d never done a lick of work in his life” (45). For Tiger and the other working-class characters in the novel, work is a moral issue.
Tiger’s insecurity also appears in the beginning of the novel, both in terms of her appearance and her self as a whole. Most notably, Tiger stops playing baseball. She’s one of the best players in town, but she is the only girl who still plays. After leaving in the middle of a game, Tiger feels “torn into two giant pieces” (27). Part of her wants to be friends with the other girls in town, while part of her wants to play the game that she’s good at—and because of her parents, she feels unable to do either.
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By Kimberly Willis Holt
