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Chapter 23
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Bone Sparrow, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Dehumanization, Invisibility, and Refugee Camps
Childhood
Family and Friendship
Storytelling, Escapism, and Hope
Summary
Analysis
Jimmie misses school because she’s sick. Her dad figures it’s the flu, and Jimmie doesn’t mind being sick if her dad is home to take care of her. In the evening, her dad comes upstairs with a wrapped gift. He was saving it for her birthday, but he thought she could use a “sick present.” Jimmie already feels better as she rips the paper and finds a dark blue blanket with black birds—birds like the Bone Sparrow. Her dad says that he doesn’t want her to get rid of the monkey blanket from her mum, but this one is more grown-up. Jimmie loves it.
The new blanket is one way that Jimmie’s dad acknowledges his daughter’s growing maturity while also helping her connect to her mum and the past. The birds on the blanket connect to the Bone Sparrow, but Jimmie’s dad’s remark that this blanket is more grown-up than the monkey blanket also suggests that Jimmie is growing and maturing from the little kid she was when her mum died.
Themes
Then, Jimmie’s dad says he has good news: he got a new job as a groundskeeper at her school, so he’ll be able to drive Jimmie every day. Jimmie is thrilled and feels content. However, her dad says that he has to go work his last shift at his current job. He’ll be home in a few days, and Jonah will be here to look after her. Jimmie is distraught when her dad leaves, and “something in [her] breaks.” She tells herself it’ll be fine, but she doesn’t feel well or okay. Something bad is going to happen, and her dad won’t be here.
Things may be looking up for Jimmie—but they won’t improve for several days, which feels like a lifetime to her now that she’s so sick. Her sense that something inside her is “break[ing]” suggests that Jimmie is truly unwell, and that now more than ever, she needs her dad to be around for her.
Themes
