68 pages • 2 hours read
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Prologue-Chapter 2
Reading Check
1. Driving (Prologue)
2. High School (Chapter 1)
3. Guam (Chapter 1)
4. Shirley (Chapter 1)
5. Married (Chapter 1)
6. Neckties (Chapter 1)
7. At his father’s family bar (Chapter 1)
8. Joe (Chapter 2)
Short Answer
1. He was unable to reserve the plot beside his parents’ burial site for himself. (Prologue)
2. Jarrett’s father was in a relationship already when he got together with Jarret’s mother (Chapter 1)
3. There were often people coming and going from the house. Sometimes he would find strange men in the house. (Chapter 2)
4. She would often ignore Jarrett, shoplift, avoid her family, and have sinister guests visiting the house. (Chapter 2)
5. Jarrett began to experience stability. He remembers being surprised to have breakfast every morning. (Chapter 2)
Chapters 3-5
Reading Check
1. Alcohol abuse (Chapter 3)
2. Spectrum House (Chapter 3)
3. Snow Cone (Chapter 3)
4. Gates Lane Elementary (Chapter 3)
5. Drawings/Cartoons (Chapter 3)
6. Holly (Chapter 3)
7. Patrick (Chapter 3)
8. Heroin addiction (Chapter 4)
9. At the Worcester Art Museum (Chapter 5)
10. Raw and American Splendor (Chapter 5)
11. Waitress (Chapter 5)
Short Answer
1. He tells his teacher he doesn’t have any parents and draws his grandparents instead. (Chapter 3)
2. His grandparents are loving toward Jarrett, but they often fight with one another. (Chapter 3)
3. Jarrett’s grandparents are afraid Leslie will relapse. Their fears are justified when they discover Leslie has overdosed on a public sidewalk. (Chapter 5)
4. Jarrett is embarrassed by his nontraditional family. He tells his grandparents they aren’t his real parents. (Chapter 5)
Chapters 6-8
Reading Check
1. Dude’s World (Chapter 6)
2. Catholic school (Chapter 6)
3. Mr. Shilale (Chapter 6)
4. Miguel (Chapter 7)
5. Hennessy (Chapter 7)
6. He doesn’t send a card (Chapter 8)
7. Her/His mother (Chapter 8)
Short Answer
1. He is published in a local newspaper, he became the comics editor for the school paper and made a mural of the school’s newspaper. (Chapter 6)
2. The family worked together at the piping company where his grandfather asked Jarrett to call him “Joe” while he was working there. Work ethic was important to Joe and his family business, and he instilled that value in Jarrett. (Chapter 6)
3. Jarrett wanted to create comics rather than work in the company. (Chapter 6)
4. Shirley told Jarrett he wasn’t that good of an artist to discourage him from pursuing a career that was unreliable. (Chapter 7)
5. While volunteering with kids at a camp Jarrett begins to wonder if he has siblings and it prompts him to write a letter to his father. (Chapter 8)
6. Jarrett looks just like his family members. (Chapter 8)
7. Jarrett says a real family is made of people you love. (Chapter 8)
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