40 Fun Facts About A Taste of Blackberries

In A Taste of Blackberries, what kills Jamie after he pokes at a hole in the ground while his friends work?

Bee stings kill him, and only a few of them: Jamie was allergic and nobody knew, so a swarm the other children simply ran from proved fatal.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what is unusual about the best friend who tells the whole story?

He is never named, which lets any reader step into his shoes. All the book reveals is that he is the cautious one of the pair, an appreciative audience for his daredevil friend.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what does Jamie hop a fence to steal from a farm beside the creek?

Apples, two of them, are the prize: Jamie goes over the fence alone while the narrator waits in terror, already planning what to do if the raid goes wrong.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what is the farmer whose fruit tree Jamie raids rumored to carry?

A shotgun is the rumor, and it frightens the narrator far more than it does Jamie, who comes back unharmed with his loot and one more reason to feel invincible.

In A Taste of Blackberries, how does Jamie get the group home when a storm catches them out walking?

By hitchhiking: he sticks out his thumb although both sets of parents have forbidden it, and even the driver who stops warns them against it.

In A Taste of Blackberries, which pests does a grouchy neighbor pay the local kids to scrape off her plants?

Japanese beetles are the job, and the offer stuns the kids: this is the woman who shouts at anyone who so much as sets foot on her property.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what does Jamie's little sister excitedly tell the narrator Jamie got to ride in?

An ambulance, she announces with delight: at four she has no idea what it means, and the narrator shrugs it off as one more of Jamie's bids for attention.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what does the narrator assume Jamie is doing when he screams and writhes on the ground?

Putting on an act is all he sees, because Jamie always overdoes everything. Fed up, the narrator walks home without checking on him, a choice he cannot stop replaying.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what does a neighbor answer when the narrator asks why Jamie died?

Some questions have no answers, she tells him, and that honesty makes more sense to the boy than any comforting tale about why his friend was taken.

Why did several publishers reject A Taste of Blackberries before it became a classic of young readers' fiction?

Too dark for children was the verdict: as many as three publishers passed on a tale about losing a playmate before Crowell took the risk and it won wide acclaim.

In A Taste of Blackberries, which neighbor is so fierce about her perfect lawn that local kids steer clear of it?

Mrs. Houser guards every blade of grass, so the kids are startled when she offers them paid work, and more so when she is seen leaving Jamie's house looking worried.

In A Taste of Blackberries, whose private garden is the narrator allowed into when most local kids are kept out?

Mrs. Mullins lets him in because she and his mother are friends, and her garden becomes the quiet place where he retreats with his grief after Jamie dies.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what is the name of Jamie's four-year-old sister, who stays home from the funeral?

Martha is too young to grasp what a funeral is, so she is left at home; she is the one who cheerfully repeats what the grown-ups have told her about Jamie.

In A Taste of Blackberries, which friend warns Jamie to stop poking at the hole in the ground before trouble starts?

Heather, the red-gold-haired friend of both boys, tells him to stop before everyone gets hurt. Jamie only scoffs that he is not afraid and keeps going.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what is the narrator doing with Jamie's little sister when his mom brings the terrible news?

Coloring pictures on the floor is how he keeps her busy while her parents are at the hospital, still half convinced that Jamie is fine and enjoying the fuss.

In A Taste of Blackberries, where does Jamie's little sister cheerfully tell the narrator that Jamie is now?

In heaven, playing with the angels, is what she has been told, and she seems glad for him. The narrator cannot picture a place so wonderful that Jamie would not miss home.

In A Taste of Blackberries, which favorite color of the narrator's keeps appearing at the story's moments of crisis?

Blue is his favorite, and the book brings it back whenever things fall apart, beginning with the moment right after he learns that Jamie is dead.

In A Taste of Blackberries, where does the narrator live in relation to his best friend Jamie's house?

Across the street is close enough that the pair are as close as brothers, and it is the short walk he takes home in a huff on Jamie's last afternoon.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what does the narrator fix his attention on in the funeral chapel to keep from crying?

The flowers give him something beautiful to study while he wills himself numb; he wants to stay strong in case his friends need comforting.

In A Taste of Blackberries, how does the grouchy neighbor pay the kids who clear the pests from her plants?

By the jar: every jar of insects a kid fills earns its own pay, so when Jamie fools around instead of working, the narrator figures it is his loss.

In A Taste of Blackberries, why do the boys leave the berry patch empty-handed in the opening scene?

The fruit is not ripe and needs a few more days. That wait frames the whole book, which returns to the same patch at the end, once the berries and the narrator are both ready.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what does the narrator's mother explain to ease his guilt over leaving Jamie?

He could not have helped, she tells him, because the reaction was too overwhelming for anyone to stop. Even so, the feeling that he failed Jamie lingers for days.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what does the narrator do while the other kids flee from the hole Jamie has disturbed?

Stands perfectly still, in shock, is his response while everyone else runs for home. It leaves him watching as Jamie reaches his own yard and drops to the ground.

In A Taste of Blackberries, why won't the narrator visit Jamie's parents before the funeral?

He has no words for them and cannot face a house full of crying visitors, so he stays behind while the neighbors' cars line up outside Jamie's home.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what does the narrator fear he will be to Jamie's family if he keeps coming around?

A sad reminder of the son they lost is what he dreads becoming, until he sees that sharing the loss with them is a help rather than a burden.

In A Taste of Blackberries, where does the narrator fall among the children in his own family?

He is the youngest by a long way: one sibling is already married and the other is away from home, so he faces the worst days of his life without them.

Which author broke a taboo of American fiction for young readers by writing A Taste of Blackberries?

Doris Buchanan Smith began writing seriously once her last child had started school, and this slim book, only her second novel, made her name.

Which classic was the accepted model for death in young readers' books before A Taste of Blackberries?

Charlotte's Web softened loss by giving it to a spider. Two decades on, this book let the one who dies be a real boy, with no animals standing in for people.

Which Katherine Paterson novel is paired with A Taste of Blackberries as a landmark story about losing a friend?

Bridge to Terabithia followed four years later, in 1977, and a School Library Journal review named the two together as seminal books for young readers on the subject of death.

Which publishing giant later absorbed Thomas Y. Crowell, the first publisher of A Taste of Blackberries?

HarperCollins inherited the book: Crowell, the firm that said yes after other houses turned the manuscript down, was sold in 1978 to Harper & Row, which later became HarperCollins.

A Taste of Blackberries is dedicated to which person, who asked its author if she planned to be a writer?

Her sixth-grade teacher, Miss Pruitt, noticed a flair for storytelling and asked the question that turned a girl who invented tales into a secret, lifelong writer.

A translation of A Taste of Blackberries into which language won the Zilveren Griffel prize for young readers' books?

Dutch readers met it under a title that means roughly "We went picking blackberries", and in 1977 that edition was among the books awarded a Zilveren Griffel in the Netherlands.

Which U.S. state, where the author of A Taste of Blackberries raised her family, named her its Author of the Year?

Georgia honored her more than once: she settled in the coastal town of Brunswick, and this book also took the state's own award for young readers' books.

What kind of tale did the author of A Taste of Blackberries set out to write before an unwelcome twist arrived?

An adventure story was the plan, until the idea of Jamie dying arrived uninvited. She was so unwilling to follow it that she stopped work on the book altogether for a time.

Which artist drew the pictures for the Crowell first edition of A Taste of Blackberries?

Charles Robinson supplied the drawings for the first edition, a slim book that runs to only about 85 pages in paperback.

Which prize for realistic books about young people facing difficulties did A Taste of Blackberries win?

Josette Frank Award is the prize's later name: when this book won for 1973 it was simply the Children's Book Award, and it was renamed in 1997.

In A Taste of Blackberries, what does Jamie use to prod the hole in the ground while his friends are busy working?

A stick is all it takes to stir up what lives down there. His friends tell him to leave it alone, and Jamie answers that he is not scared.

Where did the author of A Taste of Blackberries shut the manuscript away when she refused to go on writing it?

In a locked drawer it stayed until she could face the plot again. When she went back, she focused on how differently a child and the adults around him respond to a death.

Besides raising her own family, the author of A Taste of Blackberries and her husband cared for about two dozen of whom?

Foster children came through the family home by the dozen, one staying from age 12 into adulthood, and that close knowledge of the young shaped her realistic novels.

What became of the first novel the author of A Taste of Blackberries completed?

It was never published, so the manuscript that broke through was only her second attempt, written after she joined a writers' group and went to conferences to hone her craft.