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 11-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary
Aunt Dorie Kay tries to teach Tiger’s father how to pay bills, and Tiger is ashamed when he can’t do it. She tries to volunteer, but her aunt points out that Tiger has her own responsibilities to worry about. Tiger and Aunt Dorie Kay go out to the movies and to a soda shop. Tiger is impressed by Audrey Hepburn, who is skinny like Tiger is. However, Tiger also begins to see the segregation beyond her immediate community, and she finds this disturbing. Aunt Dorie Kay asks if Tiger would like to come live in Baton Rouge with her.
Chapter 12 Summary
Tiger is excited about the prospect of a new start with Aunt Dorie Kay in Baton Rouge, but she feels guilty and nervous about leaving behind her parents and her home. Aunt Dorie Kay arranges to have her maid, a Black woman named Magnolia, come to Saitter to help out for the summer. Tiger washes her mother’s hair with some convincing; her mother has been neglecting herself since Granny died.
Chapter 13 Summary
Tiger and her aunt drive to Baton Rouge—farther from home than Tiger has ever been. Aunt Dorie Kay says that she goes by Doreen in Baton Rouge, and she encourages Tiger to make some changes in order to fit in there as well. She even suggests that Tiger go by her middle name, Ann, because the name “Tiger” might seem odd to people in Baton Rouge.
Tiger learns that her mother’s disability is from a concussion she received as a child trying to take care of Aunt Dorie Kay. Aunt Dorie Kay expresses love for Corrina but admits that it hasn’t always been easy. They buy Tiger some new clothes, and she tentatively starts to feel a bit more grown up.
Chapter 14 Summary
Tiger meets Magnolia, who reminds her of Granny. She swims in the pool at her aunt’s apartment complex but gets out, rattled, when someone whistles at her. While running an errand for Magnolia, she gets her hair cut short like Audrey Hepburn. The hairstylist laughs at her country beliefs about haircuts, but Magnolia reinforces them.
Chapters 11-14 Analysis
These chapters deal with themes of appearance, changing oneself in the face of real or anticipated judgment, and the changes that come with growing up.
It is in these chapters that Tiger first sees Audrey Hepburn, who will become a source of inspiration throughout the rest of the novel. Tiger notices that “[Hepburn] had a long neck like my own. Her slender shape didn’t resemble the curvy figures of other movie stars” (109), and, from this representation of her own body type, Tiger realizes that “[m]aybe I wasn’t doomed after all” (109). This one example of a beautiful woman who looks like Tiger will boost Tiger’s self-esteem; this demonstrates the importance of role models, and it underscores how self-esteem tends to increase when someone feels a greater sense of belonging.
The idea of changing oneself is most apparent in Aunt Dorie Kay and her advice to Tiger. On their way to Baton Rouge, Aunt Dorie Kay tells Tiger that she goes by “[her] given name, Doreen” (124). Aunt Dorie Kay has chosen to “reinvent [herself] in Baton Rouge” (125) after being all too familiar with the townspeople’s judgment against Corrina and those close to her. Aunt Dorie Kay encourages Tiger to do the same and go by her middle name, Ann, because “Tiger’s a darling name, but I’m afraid you might have a hard time with it in Baton Rouge” (124). It is here that she introduces Tiger to the idea that one can change the things about themselves with which they aren’t comfortable.
In these chapters, Tiger also notices things in the world at large that she hadn’t before. After going to a movie and a soda parlor with her aunt, Tiger realizes the racial segregation all around her. After this realization in the soda shop, she reflects that her “milkshake didn’t taste so good” (110). Later, she is swimming in Aunt Dorie Kay’s apartment when someone whistles at her. Unwanted sexual attention and harassment is already upsetting in itself, but the experience is made all the more emotionally derailing by the fact that Tiger is a child and only at the threshold of 13 years old; leaving the pool, she feels that “the fun was gone” (136). These experiences begin to teach Tiger that growing up can involve uncomfortable discoveries—in this case, racism, sexism, and the predatory element of the world.
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By Kimberly Willis Holt
