52 pages • 1 hour read
Kate DiCamilloRaymie Nightingale
Fiction | Novel | 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.
Chapters 10-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 10-16 Summary
Raymie fondly remembers Mr. Staphopoulos, her lifesaving coach, and his cotton stuffed drowning dummy, Edgar. Mr. Staphopoulos believed that flexing your toes cleared your mind, and every day he would have his students “flex their toes and isolate their objectives” (57). She wistfully thinks about the day she said goodbye to Mr. Staphopoulos and Edgar when they moved to North Carolina and wonders why this simple goodbye was so poignant.
Back at home Raymie goes to her room to fill out the application form for the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest. One of the sections requires a list of good deeds performed by the applicant. Raymie looks out of her window and sees Mrs. Borkowski sitting in a lawn chair in the middle of the road. Mrs. Borkowski is very old and lives across the street from Raymie. Even though Rhonda thinks Mrs. Borkowski is “crazy as a loon” (46), Raymie is close to Mrs. Borkowski and trusts her opinion, so she asks her advice about the “good deed” section. Mrs. Borkowski tells Raymie a story but gives no help.
Raymie then calls Mrs. Sylvester at Clarke Family Insurance to ask her advice about a good deed, and Mrs. Sylvester suggests reading to the elderly at Golden Glen Nursing Home. In her bedroom Raymie finds what she thinks will be a suitable book: A Bright and Shining Path: The Life of Florence Nightingale. The school librarian, Mr. Option, gave Raymie this book on the last day of school, and even though Raymie has no interest in nonfiction, she took the book because she likes Mr. Option. Its cover depicts “soldiers stretched out on their backs on what looked like a battlefield” with Nightingale “walking in between the soldiers and carrying a lamp over her head, and the men were holding their hands out to her begging her for something” (55).
Raymie flexes her toes and walks to Golden Glen Nursing Home with the book. Martha, the receptionist at Golden Glen, lets Raymie in and introduces her to a feisty old lady with failing eyesight named Isabelle. Isabelle reluctantly agrees to let Raymie read to her. As Raymie pushes Isabelle in her wheelchair down the hallway towards her room, Isabelle tells Raymie that she doesn’t care about Florence Nightingale or any other “do-gooders.” Before they get to Isabelle’s room, they hear a woman screaming “Take my hand” (66). Isabelle tells Raymie that the woman, Alice Nebbley, screams this request frequently. Raymie tries to be brave the way she imagines her new friend Beverly would be.
In Isabelle’s room Raymie asks if she should start reading, to which Isabelle replies, “Do not.” They hear Alice screaming again and the sound of sad piano music. Isabelle does not seem bothered by Alice’s screaming but is unhappy with the melancholy music. Rather than have Raymie read to her, Isabelle asks Raymie to write a letter of complaint to the management for her. Isabelle dictates a letter requesting that the janitor stop playing mournful Chopin on the piano. Once the letter is written, Isabelle makes Raymie push her back down the hallway to the suggestion box and post it. Isabelle tells Raymie that this can count as her good deed, even though writing a letter of complaint about the janitor playing Chopin doesn’t feel good to Raymie. Raymie takes Isabelle back to her room, where Isabelle makes it clear that she has no interest in seeing Raymie again.
As Raymie is walking away from Isabelle’s room, she hears Alice Nebbley shouting again for someone to take her hand. Despite being terrified, Raymie decides that she must read to Alice Nebbley, reasoning that reading to Alice would be an exceptionally good deed that would make up for the bad deed of writing a letter of complaint for Isabelle. Fearfully, Raymie enters Alice’s room and asks her if she would like to hear about Florence Nightingale. Alice screams and reaches her hand out to Raymie. Raymie jumps, screams, and drops the book, which slides under Alice’s bed. Raymie runs out of Golden Glen. Catching her breath on the sidewalk, Raymie realizes that she can’t leave the book under Alice’s bed because it is a library book and that the only person brave enough to help get it back is Beverly Tapinski.
Chapters 10-16 Analysis
Raymie is searching for guidance to help her navigate life, typical for a 10-year-old girl. However, Raymie’s mother is depressed, and her father has left, so she needs to rely on other adults in her life. Mr. Staphopoulos is an adult whom Raymie likes, respects, and believes in. When he moves away, Raymie experiences the loss of an adult role model for the first time.
The influential adults in Raymie’s life are Mrs. Sylvester, Mr. Staphopoulos, and Mrs. Borkowski. Mrs. Borkowski is dismissed by adults as crazy but is full of wisdom in the eyes of young Raymie. Mrs. Borkowski introduced Raymie to the concept of souls, believing that most people let their souls shrivel. Their vivid conversations, with topics ranging from the meaning of life to gigantic baby-stealing seabirds, serve as fuel for Raymie’s imagination. Later in the book it is revealed that Mrs. Borkowski ponders the same existential questions that worry Raymie, such as: “why does the world exist?” (162). Other adults in Raymie’s life do not seem to have time to dwell on such deep questions, so Raymie feels a special connection with Mrs. Borkowski.
Mrs. Sylvester is a steadier presence for Raymie, a problem solver. She comes up with a solution (reading to the elderly) to the problem of finding a good deed for Raymie to perform. Metaphorically the book Raymie chooses about the life of Florence Nightingale is central to Raymie’s story, but in choosing it Raymie had no deeper thought other than to please the librarian, in keeping with Raymie’s ingrained desire to please.
The motifs of emotional insecurity, anxiety, and apprehension are pervasive throughout the book, creating tension in each new situation the girls encounter, either together or alone. In Chapter 13 Raymie partially overcomes her anxieties about reading to the elderly at Golden Glen alone by drawing on relaxation techniques taught by Mr. Staphopoulos. Raymie pushes herself beyond her comfort zone and in doing so has the feeling of being on the brink of a cognitive breakthrough, which at this point does not come to fruition. The depressing state of Golden Glen is implied by the fact that Isabelle complains bitterly about the beautiful, melancholy piano music but ignores Alice’s screaming. The monotony of Alice’s cries for help bothers Isabelle, not the cries themselves.
DiCamillo liberally scatters descriptors for feelings of fear throughout Raymie’s adventure in Golden Glen, reflecting the tortuous situation that the shy, introverted Raymie finds herself thrust into. The narrative of Raymie’s experience at Golden Glen remains unrelentingly tense, leading the reader nervously into Isabelle’s room with Raymie and then down the hallways punctuated by Alice’s screams and climaxing with Raymie entering Alices room in Chapter 16. When Alice screams and reaches out for her, Raymie feels her soul “whoosh into nothingness” (77), irrational terror squashing any courage that she had built up. Logically there is nothing to fear from Alice, but unlike streetwise Beverly or optimistic Louisiana, Raymie’s anxiety takes over, and she follows her instinct to flee. Having dropped the book and knowing she needs to retrieve it, Raymie wishes she were more like her new friend Beverly. She remembers Beverly’s words: “Fear is a big waste of time. I’m not afraid of anything” (79). When Raymie decides that she will ask fearless (and often intimidating) Beverly to help, it is a sign of Raymie’s budding self-confidence.
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By Kate DiCamillo
