Eleven year old Calpurnia Virginia Tate is the only girl in a family with seven children. The story begins in an especially sweltering summer in a small Texas town in 1899, where Callie sneaks away on hot afternoons to cool off in the lake. Everyone else is napping and the heat affects her mother with headaches, so Callie has a bit more freedom to explore her world than she might otherwise. When she wonders about an unusually large, yellow grasshopper previously unknown to her, she risks asking her grandfather about it. Although he doesn’t directly answer her questions but asks her to observe more closely, this incident marks the beginning of a new relationship between Callie and her grandfather. In his retirement, her grandfather has become a naturalist and experimentalist and Callie becomes more and more involved in his work. They take frequent ramblings together to gather specimens and talk about the work of Charles Darwin. Of course, Callie’s new pursuits don’t go unnoticed by her mother, who tries to engage her daughter in more ladylike pursuits.
Each chapter opens with a relevant quote from Darwin. As Callie learns more and more, she becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the expectations of society. I love the self-awareness she posessess at times — such as the realization that she is a disappointment to her mother and the very poignant feeling of an 11 year old not wanting things to change. When asked if she doesn’t want her own family someday she is a bit confused — she loves her family now, with all 7 brothers at home, her grandfather’s laboratory out back. Yet this is all fleeting.
Of course I was drawn to the science and love of nature that compells Callie and her grandfather in the story. One of my favorite quotes is “It was more important to understand someting than to like it. Liking wasn’t necessary for understanding. Liking didn’t enter into it.” (p. 280). Calpurnia’s knowledge of the world and of herself certainly evolves in this book, though it’s not clear what the resolution will be. Perhaps something joyous and unexpected, like the snowfall at the end.
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