Where The Watermelons Grow

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-11

Chapters 12-16

Chapters 17-22

Chapters 23-27

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

Content Warning: This section contains descriptions of mental illness, children in emotional distress, and discussions of mental illness inheritance.

On a hot summer night, 12-year-old Della struggles to sleep while her baby sister, Mylie, sleeps soundly. Della leaves bed and finds her mother awake in the kitchen. Mama sits at the kitchen table with a knife, prying seeds out of sliced watermelon. Della’s father grows watermelons on his farm, and watermelon is one of Della’s favorite treats. It takes Della two attempts to get her mother’s attention. Della doesn’t want to know more about what her mother is doing; she’s worried what Mama will say. Mama expresses concerns about Della and Mylie eating the watermelon, possibly ingesting a seed, and getting sick. Della wishes she hadn’t gotten up.

Della gets water from Mama’s special filter and puts her glass in the sink. Della wishes she could keep her water glass around, but Mama has a thing about germs.

Della tries to encourage her mother to go to bed too, but Mama refuses. Mama seems forgetful and again asks why Della is up. Mama won’t leave the watermelon, insisting she needs to take care of it. Della’s father wakes up and takes over trying to coax Mama back to bed while Della returns to her room. Della can hear their exasperated arguing.

Della finds Mylie is awake, so she tells Mylie a story about the Bee Lady—a beekeeper in town who healed their grandfather’s leg with honey. The town’s current Bee Lady is the granddaughter of the Bee Lady that cured Grandpa’s leg.

Della goes back to bed. She can hear Daddy has gone to bed without Mama, who continues to work on the watermelon. Della wishes something could fix Mama’s brain the way that honey fixed Grandpa’s leg.

Chapter 2 Summary

Della, Daddy, and Mylie go to church while Mama sleeps in. On the way, Della wants to ask Daddy about Mama’s behavior, but she knows Daddy will be upset if she uses the word “crazy” to describe it. Daddy tries to keep Della entertained with logic and math problems in the car. He knows Della is worried about Mama and assures Della that Mama is fine.

Della’s family lives in a very small town, with just one church where everyone goes. She’s happy about that because she gets to meet all kinds of people at church. Daddy asks Della to take Mylie to the nursery while he talks to a fellow churchgoer. Mylie refuses to let go of Della when Della tries to leave her with the caregiver, Miss Marvella. Mylie babbles that she wants Mama, leading Miss Marvella to ask if their mama is feeling okay. Della decides to bring Mylie to the regular church service, since Mylie will not stop fussing.

After church, more people inquire about Mama’s absence, aware that she has a mental health condition. Della and Daddy say that Mama is fine and just has a cold. Della wishes her best friend, Arden, were there. Arden’s family is one of the only families that doesn’t attend church.

As they leave, Miss Tabitha Quigley, the Bee Lady, checks on the family. Della wishes she could ask Miss Tabitha for magic honey to fix Mama, but she knows this would upset Daddy. Daddy has stressed to Della how important it is that they respect Mama’s privacy and allow her to have dignity, because many people don’t understand schizophrenia. Mama’s schizophrenia began when Della was born, and she’s had “bad times” since. Della wishes there were a way for Mama to exist that wasn’t just good days and bad days. She wishes Mama could be cured.

Chapter 3 Summary

Mama is awake and making sandwiches when the family arrives home. She seems perfectly fine. Daddy’s parents call. They always call on Sundays to check in. They used to own the farm, and they lived with Della’s family until Grandpa Kelly had a stroke and they moved closer to the city. Daddy assures his father that the farm is fine despite the heat and drought. Mama takes Mylie into the bedroom to put her down for a nap, but Della can hear Mylie’s obstinate screaming through the door.

Daddy tells his parents that Mama is great, and Della worries about him not telling them the truth. Daddy hands the phone to Della, and Grandma tells Della about a recipe for watermelon limeade that she found. Grandma’s voice makes Della feel better. When Della hangs up, Mama emerges from the bedroom. She’s nodding as though she is listening to someone who isn’t there.

Chapter 4 Summary

On weekdays and Saturday mornings, Della and Arden take a shift running the farm stand between their properties. Their families are very close, and have been since the girls were born, right after Arden’s family moved in.

Della and Arden like to make large chalk murals. When her mother went through a bad period when Della was eight, Della would imagine stepping into those murals to escape reality. On today’s mural, Della and Arden both work on a spiral sun, with Arden wielding the yellow chalk and Della wielding the blue. As they finish, Arden remarks that it looks depressing with the blue spiraling into the yellow, but Della feels moved by the image and the way it seems to blend happiness and sadness together. Della doesn’t feel she could’ve used yellow after the last few days.

Arden asks if Della is okay, then asks about Della’s mom like everyone else. Della really wants to tell Arden everything, but she remembers what Daddy has said about giving Mama privacy. Della doesn’t like how people treat her family as if all they know are Mama’s problems. Della says she wants to tell Arden about something from this weekend, and Arden says she also has a story. Della has Arden go first, and she tells about how her brother got caught keeping a frog in his closet. Arden asks what Della had to say, but Della brushes it off as nothing. She feels a bit better after listening to Arden’s story. Della admires the sun mural again, feeling like the happiness and sadness symbolize her day. A ladybug lands on her hand.

Della and Arden’s fathers both visit the stand. Della’s dad confides in Arden about his concerns about the farm. He takes the girls to the gas station for popsicles.

Chapter 5 Summary

At the gas station, Della and Arden meet a new boy in town, Thomas Bradley. Thomas is around 16 or 17 years old and the nephew of the gas station owner. Della and Arden watch him install a little library—a shelved box with doors—outside the gas station. Thomas’s mother wasn’t sure about moving to a small town without a library, so this was the solution. Della is excited about the idea of new books to read. Thomas’s mother emerges and explains the concept of the library, encouraging Della to pick a book.

Della chooses a book of poetry by Emily Dickinson. Daddy emerges and hires Thomas as extra help around the farm. Della blushes when Thomas says he’ll see Della around.

Chapters 1-5 Analysis

Chapters 1-5 introduce the protagonist and first-person narrator, Della Kelly, some of the supporting characters, and the rural southern setting of Della’s small town, which is experiencing severe heat and drought. Chapters 1-5 also begin to develop several important themes and symbols.

Chapter 1 begins by introducing the theme of The Impact of Mental Illness on Family, with Della discovering her mother in the middle of an episode brought on by schizophrenia (See: Background). When Della discovers Mama picking the seeds out of watermelon slices, convinced they’ll hurt Della and her sister, the novel’s main conflict begins. Della recalls a prior “bad time when [she] was eight” during which “Mama was getting sicker and sicker” (30), signaling that this has been an issue in the family before. Della’s concerns about Mama getting ill enough to be hospitalized again are part of Della’s main conflict. Della’s admission, “schizophrenia had been part of our family exactly as long as I had” (22), indicates that Della’s birth had something to do with triggering Mama’s schizophrenia, and is an important part of the guilt and responsibility she feels. Della’s sense of guilt and her strong desire to find a cure for her mother shape her character arc, while also revealing the complicated emotions family members can experience when a family member is ill.

Mama’s decision to attack the watermelon as a source of danger for the girls develops watermelon as a symbol for “normalcy” (See: Symbols & Motifs). Della narrates, “Watermelon is near about my favorite thing in the world to eat” (3). She establishes her love and attachment to the fruit early on. Even Della’s grandmother has given her the nickname “Watermelon Girl” because of how much Della loves watermelons. As she’s grown up eating them and helping her father grow them, watermelons symbolize normalcy for Della and her father. Therefore, when Mama’s mental state begins to be impacted, her decision to attack the watermelons that Della loves so much symbolizes the removal of normalcy from Della and Daddy’s lives.

A secondary conflict, which parallels the family’s conflict with Mama’s schizophrenia, is the state of the farm. Daddy expresses concern about the state of the farm, admitting, “Something’s turning my watermelon leaves brown and it’s got me worrying” (38). The browning watermelon leaves are another way that watermelons—and normalcy—are under attack for Della and Daddy. The idea that they could lose the watermelons parallels Della’s fear that they’re losing Mama.

This section also introduces the theme of The Comforts of Friendship through Della and Arden’s dynamic. After witnessing Mama picking seeds from the watermelon, Della finds comfort in Arden’s presence: “[S]eeing Arden felt like running through a sprinkler on a hot day” (28). Although Della struggles to tell Arden about her troubles, she still finds relief in Arden’s silly stories and comforting presence, showing how Arden’s companionship helps Della deal with difficult times. Ladybugs become a motif for this theme as well (See: Symbols & Motifs). As Della explains, “Ladybugs were always around me and Arden—lucky ladybugs, Mama called them, and laughed that it was part of the magic Arden and I made together” (36). The ladybugs that appear when Della and Arden are together symbolize the strength of their connection.