Hooked on YA books 2015 discussion

Sharon Creech juxtaposes Zinny’s grief and guilt surrounding the death of her sister Rose, and the subsequent death of her Aunt Jessie, with her desire to forge a path to her own destiny, independent of the tragedies. Rose died of whooping cough, which she caught from Zinny, so Zinny harnesses this guilt and it compounds her grief. It is surmised that Aunt Jessie dies from a broken heart over the death of Rose, which of course weighs even more heavily on Zinny. When Zinny begins to clear the trail on her own, it is a metaphor for her clearing away the blowdown of her sadness. While Uncle Nate – in his deteriorating mental state after his wife’s death – is chasing Jessie, Zinnia is chasing (and forging) a path to overcome her own grief. Creech uses the metaphor of the “chase” juxtapositionally, I think, because while Zinny seems to be running away from her sadness, she is in fact working through it on her own, creating her own memorial of sorts. A critical moment that resulted from this juxtaposition is when Zinny – alone in the woods clearing the trail – is chased up a tree by a bear. She is unharmed, but such a moment gave her self-confidence, and revealed how brave she truly is.