58 pages • 1 hour read
Kwame AlexanderBooked
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Middle Grade | Published in 2016A 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.
Pages 268-314Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 268-314 Summary
This section begins with “What happens to a dream destroyed?” and ends with “Freedom.” Grief-stricken, Nick is short with his mother as she says goodbye again. He returns to the psychologist’s office in the poem “Conversation with Dr. Fraud.” They talk about Nick’s favorite rapper, his relationship with his dad, and the importance of keeping up with his mom to ease their separation. Nick follows the doctor’s advice and texts his mom.
Nick asks April to a school dance. Nick gives Mr. MacDonald a book for his birthday. He asks to see inside the librarian’s mysterious dragonfly box (which The Mac calls Freedom), but Mr. MacDonald playfully refuses. Nick continues communicating with his mom and scores two goals at his soccer game. April’s dad, a police officer, gives Coby and Nick a ride home in his squad car. April mentions the word limerence, and her dad confronts Nick about April’s newfound obsession with the word.
Nick, who has memorized the entirety of Weird and Wonderful Words, goes out for wings with his dad. At dinner, his dad shares about how Nick’s granddad once helped him face a bully. Nick’s dad tried to intimidate the bully, who punched him but didn’t bully him anymore afterward.
While Nick is home alone, Mr. MacDonald visits him in the poem “Blue Moon River.” The librarian will move away with Ms. Hardwick; he gives Nick a book and his bowling bag, which contains the dragonfly box. Nick finds something amazing inside.
Nick plays a soccer game and attends a pool party. Nick confronts the Eggleston twins, using big words and soccer moves. He trips Dean, who falls in the pool. Don strikes him, and Nick blacks out. The final poem of the book, “Freedom,” shows Nick and Coby discussing the fight. The twins left his stolen bicycle at the house; Nick also shares what’s inside Freedom, Mr. MacDonald’s dragonfly box.
Pages 268-314 Analysis
Readers might recognize how “What happens to a dream destroyed?” resembles Langston Hughes’ famous poem “Harlem.” That poem begins with a near-identical line and considers how a person’s hopes can disappear and decay over time; Alexander’s homage imitates this theme as well. This poem’s shipwreck metaphor comes back when Nick’s dad tells him, “Nicholas, the world is an infinite sea of endless possibility” (270). Nick insists he can’t travel on that sea with a ruined ship; he despairs over his parents’ divorce and how his mom has left home again. He feels powerless or, as he admits to Dr. Fraud, “I feel like I’m drowning” (273).
In the midst of this pain, Nick wants to avoid his mom. He rejects his mom’s suggestion that he and Coby visit her for the Kentucky Derby. Dr. Fraud suggests that avoidance is not the answer. He recommends connecting with Nick’s mom over text and phone call to relieve some of Nick’s stress and grief. As the following poems demonstrate, Dr. Fraud’s suggestion about “regular communication” (274) pays off. Nick is playing soccer again, joking with his mom, and continuing his relationship with April, giving him hope for the future amidst the difficulty of his parents’ divorce.
Dr. Fraud and Mr. MacDonald also encourage Nick to be proud of what makes him special and not to settle for normalcy. Mr. MacDonald suggests this through metaphor when he describes the dragonflies that fill his library as “electric, Nick. / Like bolts of lightning, / they rocket into the day. That’s how I wanna live. You? / Yeah, uh, I guess” (282-283). By the time Nick sees the Eggleston twins at the pool party, he is ready to act brave and bold, like a bolt of lightning. He uses dance, tae kwon do, words, and jokes—all the skills that make him unique—to intimidate the bullies and overcome his fear.
Nick also learns from his dad how to confront his fear and face bullies during “Conversation with Dad.” Nick’s dad shares how a childhood bully made him angry, sad, and scared, and Nick identifies with the experience completely. After many scenes of silence, anger, and disinterest with his dad, Nick acts curious and eager to connect. During his confrontation with Dean, Nick repeats what his dad yelled at his bully: “I’m sick of your yobbery” (307). Even though Nick will go on to face difficult experiences, he ends Booked with more self-confidence, a better relationship with his parents, and a world of books to explore.
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