Willodeen

These chapters introduce Willodeen and her world. One of the novel’s main themes is The Balance of Nature, and the ecosystems around Willodeen’s village coupled with the occasional disaster show the beginning of a world losing its balance. The changes happen slowly, which means most people don’t notice them. The book’s early chapters set up Willodeen as different from most people, which foreshadows how she will be the one to bring about change and new ideas within her village.

In later chapters, Willodeen’s friend Connor reveals he’s been working on a story about Quinby. The prologue before Chapter 1 may be this story, though it is never made clear if it is Connor’s writing or Quinby’s actual perspective on the world. Either way, the prologue section offers a glimpse into the instinct-based view of animals. The screecher is new to the world, which is shown through her inexperience and lack of understanding. She knows she is alive, but she doesn’t yet know much else about herself, which symbolizes the complexities of learning who we are and what we are meant to do. Since humans are a type of animal, this logic can extend to people trying to learn how to live as they go along; the section from the screecher’s perspective is Applegate’s way of showing that humans are not so different from other living things.

Chapters 3 and 4 convey Willodeen’s backstory and set up her characterization. Four years before the main story, Willodeen lost her family in a fire, and ever since, she has felt like she doesn’t belong anywhere. She barely survived the fire herself, and the trauma of the experience leaves her with recurring nightmares and a perpetual fear of the next disaster. Chapter 3 shows Willodeen with her father appreciating the screechers, even while the creatures let off their foul stench. The many reasons her pa gives for people disliking screechers show that people will make up any truth necessary to justify their dislike of something, even if their reasons have no basis in fact. People hunt screechers because they hate their unpleasant smell but acknowledging that these creatures nurture their young would complicate humans’ desire to get rid of them. When Willodeen learns the truth about screechers’ nature, she understands that they have as much a right to live as any other being. The needless dislike of the screechers prompts Willodeen to be a learner and search for facts before making decisions about how to feel.