ROAR Blog #1:Rattlebone

Courtney Patterson
ROAR Blog
November 16, 2009

ROAR Blog #1
Summary:
In the Bildungsroman book, Rattlebone by Maxine Clair, the readers meet a young girl named Irene “Reenie” Wilson. Irene is a nine year old, African-American girl who lives in a black community north of Kansas City. She lives at home with her mother and father as the story begins, but as the first chapter continues her father leaves her home and starts to spend more time with Irene new teacher, Ms. Brown. Before Irene met October Brown, she had heard stories from other people in her community about her. The stories where about Ms. Brown’s bizarre family and how she received a “devil’s kiss” on the side of her cheek. Irene thought that Ms. Brown would have a bad temper and be a weird person. When Irene finally met Ms. Brown she was a level-headed teacher, who really wanted to teach her students everything she can. A few days later there was a snow storm had forced Irene’s father, James to come to the school and bring some food for the kids. When James came to the classroom Ms. Brown started to talk with him and there was some flirting that was happening between the two, but Irene thought nothing of it.
When Irene came home she found out that her mother had the baby and he was coming home a few days later. Irene was happy that she was a big sister and she was surprise how small Junie was. A few months later, Irene’s parents were continuously fight with each other and James had enough, so her left his family. At first he came back to visit all the time, but slowly these visits only happened at Sunday dinners. One day Irene decided to go to take a shortcut through the hollow, so when she arrived early at school she seen a man who had the same car as her father at her school and Ms. Brown walking from the car into the school building. Irene didn’t think that the man in the car was her father, because she thought that her father would be at work by that time. Irene began to disconnect from school, because she was not doing any of the work. Ms. Brown was noticing how Irene behavior changed and she tried to get her to do her work, because she knew that she was a smart girl, but Irene just didn’t care.
*Pages 3-15 are summarized

Quote:
“Intuition is the guardian of childhood; it was keen in us, and we were right.” (Clair 4)

Reaction:
My reaction is that Maxine Clair This quote is important to the story because it foreshadows what is coming up in the story and it tells the readers that the characters are going to use their intuition to help them later on. Maxine Clair’s style has a strong tone that will keep the readers’ attention and having them reading more. She writes with many details, so the reader will be able to picture being there with the characters.