Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens

“Well, obviously, on the surface, it looks like an accident: he fell from the tower and was killed.

1952

a lesson she’d learned from watching wild turkeys: if you act like a predator, they act like prey.

throat of oaks

The tide was going out, she knew by water lines along the creek shores. When it receded enough, any time from now, some channels would shallow up and she’d run aground, get stranded. She’d have to head back before then. As she rounded a stand of tall grass, suddenly the ocean’s face—gray, stern, and pulsing—frowned at her. Waves slammed one another, awash in their own white saliva, breaking apart on the shore with loud booms—energy searching for a beachhead. Then they flattened into quiet tongues of foam, waiting for the next surge. The surf taunted her, daring her to breach the waves and enter the sea, but without Jodie, her courage failed. Time to turn around anyway. Thunderheads grew in the western sky, forming huge gray mushrooms pressing at the seams.

Examplee of description of nature giving you the sensation that you are there . You feel the naturse.

Scupper went on. “Don’t go thinking poetry’s just for sissies.

Whole point of it—they make ya feel something.” His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.

“And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said, ‘Please close that door. It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm— Since I left Plumtree down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.’” Scupper

1952

1969

They sipped until the sun, as golden and syrupy as the bourbon, slipped into the sea.

1953

1969

1956

1956, when Kya was ten,

“I don’t know how to do life without grits.”

1956

1960

A great blue heron is the color of gray mist reflecting in blue water.

flock of fifteen wild turkeys—mostly hens, a few toms and jakes—rushed about, pecking what looked like an oily rag crumpled in the dirt. Dust stirred from their feet and shrouded the woods, drifting up through branches, caught there. As Kya had crept closer, she saw it was a hen turkey on the ground, and the birds of her own flock were pecking and toe-scratching her neck and head. Somehow she’d managed to get her wings so tangled with briars, her feathers stuck out at strange angles and she could no longer fly. Jodie had said that if a bird becomes different from the others—disfigured or wounded—it is more likely to attract a predator, so the rest of the flock will kill it, which is better than drawing in an eagle, who might take one of them in the bargain. A

See pg 90 in book relAting to how does kyas persecution relate to tge turkey hen scene.

1969

1960

She’d never gone to Colored Town, but knew where it was and figured she could find Jumpin’ and Mabel’s place once she got there.

What’s the matter with ’im, why don’t he do sump’m? Kya raged to herself. She knew nigger was a real bad word—she knew by the way Pa had used it like a cussword. Jumpin’ could have knocked the boys’ heads together, taught them a lesson. But he walked on fast.

“I wadn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.” He smiled. “That’s a very good sentence. Not all words hold that much.”

Instead she memorized the bluish veins on the inside of his wrist, as intricate as those sketched on the wings of wasps.

Learning to read was the most fun she’d ever had.

Then one night she made a little oh sound, and took the old Bible from the shelf. Sitting at the table, she turned the thin pages carefully to the one with the family names. She found her own at the very bottom. There it was, her birthday: Miss Catherine Danielle Clark, October 10, 1945.

Master Jeremy Andrew Clark, January 2, 1939. “Jeremy,” she said out loud. “Jodie, I sure never thought a’ you as Master Jeremy.”

Above the list of children she read: Mister Jackson Henry Clark married Miss Julienne Maria Jacques, June 12, 1933. Not until that moment had she known her parents’ proper names.

1960

“You say ’sides sometimes,” she said, almost smiling. “Yeah, we all got magnolia mouth, being from the North Carolina sticks, but we have to try.”

“Jumpin’ said the Social Services are lookin’ for me. I’m scared they’ll pull me in like a trout, put me in a foster home or sump’m.” “Well, we better hide way out there where the crawdads sing. I pity any foster parents who take you on.” Tate’s whole face smiled. “What d’ya mean, where the crawdads sing? Ma used to say that.” Kya remembered Ma always encouraging her to explore the marsh: “Go as far as you can—way out yonder where the crawdads sing.” “Just means far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters. Now, you got any ideas where we can meet?”

“Well, we better hide way out there where the crawdads sing. I pity any foster parents who take you on.” Tate’s whole face smiled.

“What d’ya mean, where the crawdads sing? Ma used to say that.” Kya remembered Ma always encouraging her to explore the marsh: “Go as far as you can...

“Just means far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters. Now, you got a...

Late one evening she took her first novel, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, from Ma’s bookshelf and read about love.

AUTUMN WAS COMING; the evergreens might not have noticed, but the sycamores did. They flashed thousands of golden leaves across slate-gray skies.

He didn’t mention how he felt sorry for her being alone, that he knew how the kids had treated her for years; how the villagers called her the Marsh Girl and made up stories about her. Sneaking out to her shack, running through the dark and tagging it, had become a regular tradition, an initiation for boys becoming men. What did that say about men? Some of them were already making bets about who would be the first to get her cherry. Things that infuriated and worried him.

The other words Tate didn’t say were his feelings for her that seemed tangled up between the sweet love for a lost sister and the fiery love for a girl.

A power of emotions as painful as pleasurable.

From a patience born from knowing, she waited.

And just at that second, the wind picked up, and thousands upon thousands of yellow sycamore leaves broke from their life support and streamed across the sky. Autumn leaves don’t fall; they fly.

They take their time and wander on this, their only chance to soar. Reflecting sunlight, they swirled and sailed and fluttered on the wind drafts.

As she ran back through them, they caught like gold in her hair.

And he kissed her again. This time she tilted her head to the side and her lips softened. And for the first time in her life, her heart was full. 18. White Canoe 1960 Now,

Miliza Korjus rose

how some cells divide and specialize into lungs or hearts, while others remain uncommitted as stem cells in case they’re needed later.

Birds sing mostly at dawn because the cool, moist air of morning carries their songs and their meanings much farther.

Within all the worlds of biology, she searched for an explanation of why a mother would leave her offspring.