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 8-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
Tiger returns home to a gossipy sewing circle at her house. Tiger’s mother and grandmother are making her dresses for the upcoming school year; Tiger is thankful but embarrassed by how plain and childlike the dresses are. Later, Tiger’s grandmother teaches her how to make her secret chicken and dumpling recipe. That night, feeling guilty that she isn’t more thankful for her parents, Tiger retreats to her grandmother’s bedroom. Her grandmother tells Tiger just how much her parents love her before they go to sleep. The next day, Tiger’s playing is interrupted by her mother screaming in the distance.
Chapter 9 Summary
In one of the central scenes of the novel, Tiger’s grandmother dies while picking crops in their home garden. Corrina finds her and is devastated (this is the screaming that Tiger heard at the end of the last chapter). Tiger realizes that her grandmother likely knew she was dying. Aunt Dorie Kay comes down from Baton Rouge to help with the funeral preparations. Tiger is thankful for her presence and resents that her parents aren’t able to do more. Tiger wonders at the different ways that her mother and her aunt show grief; her aunt attends to the practical things while her mother refuses to get out of bed.
Chapter 10 Summary
At the funeral and wake, Tiger feels she has to be strong for her parents. Her grandmother was the only one who Tiger felt she could turn to when she needed help processing her emotions. She desperately wants to be left alone, but people keep expressing their sympathy. She yells at Jesse Wade to leave her alone when he finds her outside the wake. Tiger is only able to show emotion and cry about the death of her grandmother when her father tells her he’s sorry and gives her a hug.
Chapters 8-10 Analysis
Ideas of appearance as well as judgment and comparison are most prominent in these chapters.
Tiger recalls that Granny, in her unfailing honesty, told Tiger that “[y]ou’re not [pretty]. But you’re smart and that’s more important” (77). Though this isn’t the kindest thing to say to an insecure child, it’s truthful, and it introduces Tiger to the idea that there are more important things than one’s looks. This judgment on Granny’s behalf is tempered by Corrina’s unfailing love, as Tiger realizes that “Momma always told me I was pretty and I think she really believed it” (78). Here, Tiger learns that the only opinions that really matter are those of the people whom you care about: Granny thinks Tiger is smart, while Corrina thinks Tiger is beautiful, and Tiger feels fulfilled by that.
However, Tiger is still judgmental of her parents; after Granny dies, Tiger “want[s] to yell” because her father isn’t “like other daddies” (89). Later, the idea that one can harshly judge the people to whom they are closest reappears in the relationship between Aunt Dorie Kay and Granny. Granny says that she “wouldn’t be caught dead” (98) in a dress that Aunt Dorie Kay gave her, while Aunt Dorie Kay says that “[i]t’s the only decent thing she has to wear” (99). These examples illustrate that in the absence of open communication, judgment and resentment can often get in the way of love.
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By Kimberly Willis Holt
