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Copywork
About This Passage
This sentence is one of the chapter's quietest emotional climaxes, and it is worth studying because it captures the specific way joy and grief can coexist in the same moment. Notice the phrase 'swollen and full' — these are words usually associated with pain, but here they describe joy. DiCamillo is deliberately using injury-language for happiness because the happiness is so intense it feels like an injury. Notice also the word 'desperately,' which is a strong modifier that refuses to let the wish be gentle. Opal is not mildly thinking of her mother; she is aching for her. The final phrase — 'so she could come to the party too' — adds the small word 'too' that gathers the mother into the circle of friends Opal has built. Opal is saying that her mother would fit here, that she has made a place where her mother would belong if she returned. Copying this passage teaches a writer how a single sentence can render the specific coexistence of joy and longing, and how the word 'too' can carry the weight of an included absence.
It made my heart feel funny, all swollen and full, and I wished desperately that I knew where my mama was so she could come to the party too.
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell the chapter. Then identify the moment the party stops being a plan and becomes a real event. What signal does DiCamillo give us that the shift has happened?
Discussion Questions
- DiCamillo uses words like 'swollen' and 'full' — normally words for injury or pressure — to describe Opal's joy at seeing the decorated yard. Analyze this word choice. What is DiCamillo claiming about the nature of intense joy?
- Opal wishes 'desperately' that her mother could come to the party. This is the first strong return of the missing-mother feeling in many chapters. Why does the joyful moment bring the missing back so sharply?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
the state of two opposed things existing at the same time without canceling each other
Item 2
a missing person who is nevertheless given a place in the speaker's thoughts, as if they were present in their absence
Item 3
the feeling of looking forward to something that has not yet happened — often mixed with both hope and nervousness
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Critical Thinking
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