60 pages • 2 hours read
Alice HoffmanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
For more than 200 years, the inhabitants of Blackbird House experience trauma and sorrow as well as love and new beginnings. One thread uniting the narrative is that love is a powerful motivator in times of difficulty but can cause people to make questionable decisions.
Love provides inspiration through suffering. Coral Hadley first demonstrates this when she refuses to accept that her family is dead and toils tirelessly to cultivate a farm that John would have wanted. The intense physical labor that Coral undertakes is a sign of love and a coping mechanism for her loss. Likewise, love propels Vincent to make the long journey home, although he doesn’t realize it until he reaches his destination. Seeing the farm, “[h]e thought about how love could move you in ways you wouldn’t have imagined, one foot in front of the other, even when you thought you had nothing left inside” (21). Vincent sees the connection between his mother and himself: Love led them both through pain. A similar connection between parent and child surfaces in “The Token.” Distraught over the death of her husband, Ruth is paralyzed. However, when Garnet approaches her with the means to leave, Ruth agrees.
By Alice Hoffman
Green Angel
Alice Hoffman
Half Magic
Edward Eager, N. M. Bodecker, Alice Hoffman
Incantation
Alice Hoffman
Local Girls
Alice Hoffman
Nightbird
Alice Hoffman
Practical Magic
Alice Hoffman
The Dovekeepers
Alice Hoffman
The Invisible Hour
Alice Hoffman
The Marriage Of Opposites
Alice Hoffman
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Alice Hoffman
The River King
Alice Hoffman
The Rules of Magic
Alice Hoffman
The World That We Knew
Alice Hoffman
Appearance Versus Reality
View Collection
Beauty
View Collection
Family
View Collection
Fate
View Collection
Good & Evil
View Collection
Grief
View Collection
Jewish American Literature
View Collection
Magical Realism
View Collection
Mortality & Death
View Collection
Romance
View Collection
The Past
View Collection
Valentine's Day Reads: The Theme of Love
View Collection