Ecology of a Cracker’s Childhood – Book Synopsis
junkyard families
Janisse Ray’s book Ecology of a Cracker Childhood charts the life of a young girl growing up with her family who own a junkyard in Appling County, Georgia. Many experiences may have been different for her, but she still lives as many children do; with rules and playing outdoors with her imagination.
The main reason her book was written was to describe the life of a girl growing up in a situation that most don’t find. She and her siblings spent many hours outdoors playing in the junkyard; They played baptism where one child pretended to be the pastor and the other would be the one being baptized. Sometimes the pastor would leave the baptized under too long. One trait that her father wanted her to have was to be able to play the piano. She hated it so much that she finally told her father that she wouldn’t play it anymore. She would rather play outside with her brothers at the junkyard. They would be very creative in what they did with their spare time. They would tie gas tanks together and make a raft. She played with her dolls in the back of the car, pretending to nurse them. She loved to pretend that she was her mother.
His father is very smart. He knows how to take old, beat-up cars out of other people’s hands, even if the car holds a special place in the owner’s heart. His father loves animals and cannot bear to see or hear that an animal, big or small, has been tortured or hurt. He defends all animals, a carrier pigeon, a dog, a snake, a tortes, a stork and a turtle.
Once a turtle was crossing the road. A boy began to play with the turtle with his foot. It was a snapping turtle and supposedly they don’t release it until lightning strikes. The turtle grabbed his foot and didn’t let go. The boy stomped on the ground and broke the poor turtle’s jaw. Shortly after the incident, his brothers told his father what had happened. After his father spoke to the boy, he turned to his children. He pulled the belt off of him and spanked everyone with it. He thought that he could have prevented the incident. If the children were fighting, all he had to do was touch his belt and they would stop immediately.
On another occasion, his dad found a dog lying on the side of the road. He gave the dog some prescription pills he had at home to ease the pain even though he believed he would not survive the night. In the morning, he came back to check on the dog and it was still alive. He nursed him back to health and then released him. He found many animals and tried to help everyone. He found a stork that they let live in the house. Shortly after finding the stork, he built an outdoor house for her.
He even saved his son’s life once. Three of her four children are going on a boat trip and they don’t know how to swim. The two boys sat on a bench in the boat and one of them stood up because he thought he saw an alligator. The other two boys went flying overboard. It was Sunday and they had just come home from church. His father was still dressed in his suit and dove after his children just in time to save them. He would have given anything to keep them safe. He wanted to keep them so safe that he didn’t want his children to be corrupted by the outside world. He threw out the only television they had owned shortly after buying it. Also, to make sure his children weren’t made fun of for the way they lived, he didn’t allow his children to bring friends over to the house. To avoid uncomfortable situations, he also did not allow them to go to other friends’ houses.
I really liked this book as it had short stories that I could remember even long after reading it. Her book was very descriptive and she did a great job of showing how she grew up. It was very realistic and I hope many people get to read her book.