54 pages • 1 hour read
Katherine ApplegateWillodeen
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
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BetaPart 3, Chapters 24-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3, Chapter 24 Summary
After the group consults the notes Willodeen took about screechers in the wild, they’re still not sure what to feed the baby. Mae and Birdie finally decide to try making something the screecher might like. Connor needs to get home before it gets too late, but before he goes, he names the baby Quinby after a dog he had who howled at night like a screecher. Connor wishes them luck, which Willodeen is grateful for because she “knew we would need it” (143).
Part 3, Chapter 25 Summary
Over the next two days, Willodeen, Mae, and Birdie have no luck getting Quinby to eat. Willodeen is scared the baby won’t survive, but Mae and Birdie argue that if anyone can save the baby, it’s her. Willodeen argues she doesn’t know anything about magic screechers, to which Mae quips she “expect[s] they eat same as the regular ones” (146).
Willodeen pores over her notes again and comes up with a few new ideas to try. She heads out to forage, noting how the weather is unseasonably warm for fall and that the dry winds are stronger than usual. On her way to forage, she runs into Connor and his father.
Part 3, Chapter 26 Summary
Connor introduces Willodeen to his father, who seems much less intimidating than he did in the council meeting. They discuss the dry conditions, the expanding railway, and a recently planted stand of blue willows that aren’t doing well because the trees need to be near water. They lament how things that seem unhelpful are touted as progress. A gust of wind makes Willodeen drop her notebook, and Connor’s father asks if she draws like Connor. Willodeen explains she takes notes about changes, and Connor’s father compares her to Connor’s mother, who died when Connor was three years old. Willodeen realizes she and Connor have more in common than she thought. The group parts ways and Willodeen heads toward the blue willows as a steam train whistle pierces the night, “harsh and plaintive as a screecher’s call” (157).
Part 3, Chapter 27 Summary
Quinby eats the peacock snails Willodeen manages to find in the soil near the blue willows. Watching the screecher happily eat fills Willodeen with a sense of pride over providing for the creature. As Quinby eats, Willodeen ponders what to do with her and wonders if the magic will wear off and return Quinby to a creation of weeds and mud. That night, Quinby and Duuzuu curl up in bed with Willodeen. Their closeness and Mae’s and Birdie’s kindness make Willodeen realize her life isn’t so bad. Sleep comes without nightmares, thanks to the contented animal snores that “made for a perfect lullaby” (164).
Part 3, Chapters 24-27 Analysis
These chapters show Willodeen finally feeling comfortable with her current situation, even though she isn’t yet aware of this comfort. She finds the peacock snails that Quinby likes and is fulfilled by the snores of the little creatures who depend on her. Their contentment creates a feeling of purpose in Willodeen, who is happy about feeling needed and doing something right. The parental and protective feelings she is developing work in reverse here; while she provides and cares for Quinby and Duuzuu, she now realizes how this caretaker role benefits her, too. They don’t take care of her in the same way—they don’t give her food or shelter—but their emotional support allows her to feel less broken inside. Duuzuu by himself didn’t give Willodeen this revelation because she always thought he had the same trauma as her from surviving the fire. Quinby, by contrast, has different hardships and is helpless from being new to the world. Her situation feels more desperate than Willodeen’s, which allows Willodeen to cope with her past troubles and nurture something that needs care more than she does. Applegate also uses these feelings to demonstrate how stewarding the environment and caring for other creatures can have intangible rewards for people.
Chapter 26 offers more foreshadowing and character growth. Willodeen learns that Connor also lost a parent and that knowledge allows her to see that she isn’t the only one who is missing loved ones. This similarity truly lets Willodeen open up to Connor’s friendship. Through his kinship in loss, she begins to heal from her own losses. Meanwhile, a train whistles in the distance. The train was linked to fires in the past, and the strong winds coupled with the passing train here foreshadow that another fire is coming to the village. Willodeen compares the train whistle to a screecher call, which suggests a link between nature and progress. Though technological progress aided in destroying The Balance of Nature and ecosystems, it doesn’t have to be that way; the train whistle sounds just as forlorn as a lone screecher, suggesting that technology, like nature, can thrive in a nonharmful way under the right conditions. The train is also chugging away from the village, which foreshadows how screechers are found in a nearby village at the end of the book. While individual towns and ecosystems can seem like entire worlds, they’re connected to the broader environment. Everyone must work together to keep nature in balance.
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By Katherine Applegate
