62 pages • 2 hours read
Jesmyn WardSalvage the Bones
Jesmyn WardFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
CHAPTER 1
Reading Check
1. What is the name of the youngest Batiste sibling?
2. How did Mama die?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Skeetah’s dog’s name, and what significant event is happening concerning her?
2. Who is Manny and what is his relationship with Esch?
CHAPTER 2
Reading Check
1. What is Esch looking for?
2. What do Skeetah, Big Henry, and Esch go to town to buy?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Skeetah building at the beginning of Chapter 2, and how does Esch react to this?
2. What does Esch secretly buy at the store, and what does she realize after using this item?
CHAPTER 3
Reading Check
1. What does Skeetah think is the cause of the white and brown puppy’s illness?
2. What does Skeetah do to prevent the puppy from spreading illness to the others?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does China act toward the sick puppy and what reason does Esch provide for why she might be acting this way?
Paired Resource
“From the combination of racism and sexism, here is the story of a new word”
- This short article from Northwestern University explains the origins and meaning of the term misogynoir, as developed by Northwestern professor Moya Bailey.
- This resource connects to the theme of Attitudes Toward Women.
- What is misogynoir, and how does it help people better understand the complex intersection between racism and sexism? How does this understanding provide a lens through which to consider Esch’s experience in the novel?
CHAPTER 4
Reading Check
1. What structure does Daddy salvage materials from to prepare for the hurricane?
2. What is notable about the residents of the farm a mile from the Batiste home?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What prompts the siblings to break into the neighboring barn, and what is Esch’s role in this activity?
CHAPTER 5
Reading Check
1. How does Skeetah injure himself?
2. Why does Daddy come back from Van’s Salvage in an angry mood?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Manny’s tone when he tells Skeetah he must dilute the dewormer, and how does Esch react to this?
2. What does China do when Daddy pushes Skeetah to the ground and what is Daddy’s response?
CHAPTER 6
Reading Check
1. What alerts Skeetah to the fact that something may be wrong with China?
2. What does Esch begrudgingly allow Junior to do with the puppies?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Skeetah think is wrong with China, and what is his strategy for helping her recover?
2. What does Daddy try to remove from the tractor and what sort of accident happens as a result?
Paired Resource
“A Closer Look at Dogfighting”
- This article from the ASPCA briefly describes the history of dogfighting and explains the way dogfighting appears in contemporary society as well as the laws surrounding dogfighting. Because this article is from the ASPCA, it holds an anti-dogfighting bias.
- This resource connects to the theme of Renewal, Re-Birth, and Its Inevitable Pain, as there is a strong bond between Skeetah and China even as dogfighting itself is controversial.
- What is the role that dogfighting plays in communities, and why do people engage in dogfighting? How does this understanding help provide context for the role that dogfighting plays in the novel?
CHAPTER 7
Reading Check
1. What do the siblings go to watch in Chapter 7?
2. What does Big Henry give Junior?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Manny realize about Esch when he meets her in the girls’ bathroom and how does he react to this realization?
CHAPTER 8
Reading Check
1. Why does Esch agree to go to the dog fight?
2. What is the name of the dog who fights in place of China?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Marquise’s dog’s name, and what is their relationship to the dog fights?
2. Why does China end up fighting Kilo and what is the result of that fight?
CHAPTER 9
Reading Check
1. Who is throwing up in the bathroom at the beginning of Chapter 9?
2. What task do the siblings need to take on themselves, due to Daddy’s incapacitation?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why does Randall think Daddy has gotten sick, and what is Daddy’s response to Randall’s observation?
Paired Resource
“Hurricane Katrina, in 7 Essential Facts”
- This article from Vox establishes seven ways of considering Hurricane Katrina and how these items might help mitigate disasters in the future.
- This resource connects to the theme of Nature’s Destructive and Life-Giving Power.
- Consider some of the reasons why Hurricane Katrina was so devastating and how some of the points in the article connect to elements of the novel.
CHAPTER 10
Reading Check
1. How many eggs do Randall, Junior, and Esch find?
2. What does Esch tell Manny?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Randall’s concern about their readiness for the storm, and what is Daddy’s response?
CHAPTER 11
Reading Check
1. What category does Hurricane Katrina reach in Chapter 11?
2. What does Esch remember Mama saying the hurricane winds sound like?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is the purpose of the phone call that Esch answers, and how does this call impact her?
CHAPTER 12
Reading Check
1. Where does Skeetah go when he leaves Mother Lizbeth’s attic, even though the storm isn’t fully over yet?
2. Where does the Batiste family end up seeking shelter once the storm ends?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Randall’s reaction to finding out that Manny is the father of Esch’s baby, and how does Esch respond?
Paired Resource
“Disaster Assistance in Rural Areas in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina”
- This short report from the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning describes the impact of Hurricane Katrina on rural areas in the Gulf Coast and how these areas faced unique struggles after the storm.
- This resource connects to the theme of Nature’s Destructive and Life-Giving Power.
- Why were rural areas uniquely affected by Hurricane Katrina? How does this understanding help provide context for what Esch and her family might have faced?
Recommended Next Reads
- This novel by Zora Neale Hurston, first published in 1937, tells the story of Janie Crawford as she goes on a journey of self-discovery, navigating relationships with friends, family, and men and ultimately finding authenticity and agency.
- Shared themes include Nature’s Destructive and Life-Giving Power, Attitudes Toward Women, and Renewal, Re-Birth, and Its Inevitable Pain.
- Shared topics include gender and misogynoir, family dynamics, coming-of-age and self-discovery, and navigating major and transformative acts of nature.
- Their Eyes Were Watching God on SuperSummary
- The Men We Reaped is a memoir by Jesmyn Ward in which she reflects upon the five men in her life whom she lost in the span of as many years. She explores the socioeconomic factors that contributed to their untimely and tragic deaths and, in doing so, reflects upon Black manhood itself.
- Shared themes include Renewal, Re-Birth, and Its Inevitable Pain.
- Shared topics include gender, race and racism, poverty, familial relationships, trauma, grief, and the peace that can come with understanding.
- Men We Reaped on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
CHAPTER 1
Reading Check
1. Junior
2. She died giving birth to Junior.
Short Answer
1. The dog’s name is China, and she is giving birth to her first litter of puppies.
2. Manny is Randall’s friend and he and Esch have sex with each other.
CHAPTER 2
Reading Check
1. Eggs
2. Dog food
Short Answer
1. He is building a kennel for China and the puppies and Esch tells him that it feels too soon for him to be doing that.
2. Esch buys a pregnancy test and realizes that she is pregnant.
CHAPTER 3
Reading Check
1. Parvo
2. He kills it.
Short Answer
1. China is ignoring the puppy and refusing to feed her. Esch suggests that perhaps China knows the puppy is sick and is protecting the rest of the litter.
CHAPTER 4
Reading Check
1. Mother Lizbeth and Papa Joseph’s house
2. They are white.
Short Answer
1. Skeetah is going to steal dewormer for the puppies, and Esch’s job is to lay in the field and whistle if anyone comes.
CHAPTER 5
Reading Check
1. He cut himself on the window when he jumped down from the neighbor’s barn.
2. The salvage yard didn’t have the part he needed for his dump truck.
Short Answer
1. Manny laughs while he tells Skeetah about the dewormer as if he is amused that Skeetah didn’t already know this. Esch feels a flash of anger at Manny for insulting Skeetah.
2. China darts toward Daddy as if to defend Skeetah. Skeetah calls her off, but Daddy says, “I wish she would” and that he would take her and shoot her.
CHAPTER 6
Reading Check
1. She is listless and feeble and isn’t exhibiting tough love for her puppies as she typically would.
2. She allows him to pick up the puppies.
Short Answer
1. He thinks he gave her too much of the dewormer, so he decides to walk her for a long distance in the heat to help her sweat it out of her system.
2. Daddy tries to get the chicken wire out of the tractor’s grille, but Randall starts the tractor at the same time and the wire cuts off Daddy’s fingers.
CHAPTER 7
Reading Check
1. Randall’s basketball game
2. Change for the concession stand
Short Answer
1. Manny realizes that Esch is pregnant when he begins to have sex with her in the girls’ bathroom. When he realizes this he yells, throws her off of him, and storms out of the bathroom.
CHAPTER 8
Reading Check
1. Junior wants to go, and he can only go if Esch does.
2. Boss
Short Answer
1. His dog’s name is Lala, and while he brings her to the dog fights, she never fights herself.
2. There is no clear winner in the fight between Kilo and Boss, so Skeetah puts China in the ring herself. Ultimately, China wins the fight.
CHAPTER 9
Reading Check
1. Daddy
2. Preparing the house for the hurricane
Short Answer
1. Randall thinks Daddy has gotten sick because he is drinking beer while taking his antibiotics and pain medication. Daddy responds flippantly by saying, “Beer ain’t nothing…Just like a cold drink.” (Chapter 9)
CHAPTER 10
Reading Check
1. 24
2. That she is pregnant
Short Answer
1. Randall is concerned that they don’t have enough food stockpiled, and Daddy responds by saying that it’s enough and that FEMA and the Red Cross always come through with supplies.
CHAPTER 11
Reading Check
1. Category 5
2. A train
Short Answer
1. The phone call is the automated hurricane warning and evacuation notice, and this is what finally makes the danger of the hurricane real for Esch.
CHAPTER 12
Reading Check
1. To find China
2. Big Henry’s house
Short Answer
1. Randall is angry and says he is going to beat up Manny, but Esch tells him not to—that she already did.
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