67 pages • 2 hours read
Kate AlbusA Place to Hang the Moon
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
The next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Forrester call Miss Carr and surrender the Pearce children. Mrs. Norton, President of the WVS, says the will have a new billet by the afternoon. Anna suggests Mrs. Müller, but Mrs. Norton calls her “unsuitable.”
After school, they go to the library to pass time before meeting Miss Carr about their new host family. Mrs. Müller believes Edmund’s side of the story and sympathizes with him over the injustice of being blamed for something he did not do.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, Miss Carr leads them to their new residence, warning them to be on their best behavior. They walk into the poor sector of town and approach a house with a squalling infant. The woman who answers the door, Mrs. Griffith, introduces the baby as Robert Jr., two girls in diapers as Jane and Helen, and a slightly older girl as Penny. Mrs. Griffith double checks with Miss Carr about how much money and rations she will receive with the addition of three children; it is then the children realize that their care is a source of income.
After Miss Carr leaves, Mrs. Griffith shows them through her run-down house to their shared bedroom, which holds a chamber pot, three straw pallets, and an apple crate. Anna, who previously believed Mr. Engersoll’s plan would work, is distraught with a new lack of hope.
At supper that night, Mrs. Griffith lays out their weekly schedule, including Monday washing day and Friday bath night. She asks the children what skills they have and they are at a loss for what they can offer her.
Edmund and William eagerly help clean up after dinner while Anna goes to entertain the younger children. After the washing up, Mrs. Griffith takes the younger children to bed. William resolves to investigate what Mrs. Griffith called the “petty” before bed: the outdoor bathroom. William reports that it is not bad, Edmund is aghast by it, and Anna is too afraid to go alone.
In their shared room, William writes a postcard with their updated address to Miss Collins and reads a story to the others before bed.
Chapter 11 Summary
The next morning, Mrs. Griffith makes the three porridge while Anna looks after baby Robert. Before they leave for school, she tells them to ask Miss Carr about their ration books and extra blankets.
At school, Miss Carr is in their class. She tells them Mrs. Warren will be absent for a long time, as her husband just died fighting in North Africa. The class writes letters of support to Mrs. Warren before going about their lessons.
After school, the children visit Mrs. Müller to see if their library cards will still work since they’ve changed houses. The librarian does not seem to know their new billet and asks if Mrs. Griffith will stop by to sign their cards. Mrs. Müller senses their hesitation and says that she will sign their cards for them.
Back at Mrs. Griffith’s, William and Edmund tear up newspaper for the petty while Mrs. Griffith makes dinner. Anna reads to the younger girls from a book she rented for them, Winnie the Pooh.
The next morning, the children’s room is leaking water. Anna tries to make porridge like Miss Collins taught her, but Mrs. Griffith scolds her for using two days’ worth of rations. After school, they seek shelter from the rain in the library. Edmund takes his shoes off to warm his stockings by the fire. Edmund and Anna are horrified and afraid that Mrs. Müller will scold them, but she only says that they should follow Edmund’s example.
When they arrive back at Mrs. Griffith’s, Mrs. Griffith is annoyed that they were gone so long with their “books.” She leaves a shrieking baby Robert with them, forcing them to change his diaper. Since it is Friday, they take turns washing up in a tin washtub in the kitchen. Afterwards, they put together their two remaining dry pallets and sleep.
Chapter 12 Summary
On Saturday, Mrs. Griffith sends the children out to do the weekly shopping. They wait in long lines at the grocer and greengrocer. The greengrocer is out of onions and advises the children to buy leeks instead, though they are more expensive. At Mr. Forrester’s butcher shop, the children do not have enough money for both trotters and liver.
Mr. Forrester apologizes to the children for what happened at their house and gives them the liver for free. When they return to Mrs. Griffith, she is nervous that they told Mr. Forrester she does not have enough money. She says she has not gotten any money from the army since her husband was killed two months prior.
The children receive a postcard from Miss Collins, who relays the awful situation in London and a flare-up of her rheumatism. That night, the children are woken up by explosions and a glow in the distance. The next morning, they learn that Coventry, 25 miles away, has been bombed.
Chapter 13 Summary
The next Saturday, Mrs. Griffith orders Anna to watch the children while she does the shopping. She tells William and Edmund to go ratting at a farm across town, saying they’d find boys to explain the process to them along the way. As they walk, they find Alfie and his foster brother, who tells them the mechanics of how the farmer scares the rats out of their holes so the boys can kill them.
At the farm, the two boys, feeling afraid and excited, each grab wood planks. The farmer fills the rat holes with water and rats begin to stream out. Boys fly at the rats, squishing and battering them to death. Edmund, William, and Alfie are horrified and nauseated. The brothers are terrified of what Mrs. Griffith will do to them if they return with no money. Sickened by the violence and crying, William manages to kill two rats so Edmund does not have to kill anything. He is promptly sick.
Back at the house, Mrs. Griffith is furious at the small amount of money they made and accuses them of stealing the rest for themselves.
Chapters 10-13 Analysis
In these chapters, the children move to their second billet, Mrs. Griffith’s house. These chapters introduce a complex exploration about how different classes of people experience wartime effects differently, as well as what rural English poverty looks like day to day. The difference between life with Mrs. Griffith and the Pearces’ former home life illustrates Tiers of Social Prejudice from a class perspective.
Both evacuees and host families were from a variety of social classes. Children struggled with the emotional trauma of both the impending violence of the war and being removed from their families and everything they knew back home. They might be placed with a new family very unlike their own, which could be difficult for both parties. This type of tension immediately blooms between Mrs. Griffith and the children. After Miss Carr leaves, she examines the children from head to toe and says, “You three look posh, don’t you? You come from a fancy family?” (129-30). Because the siblings come from wealth, even the sparse clothes they packed while evacuating denote their class status. Mrs. Griffith’s main concern is that the children’s family will “be coming around at every weekend, expecting [her] to feed them” when she barely has enough resources to feed her own family, who are her priority (130). However, the precarity this brings to her life manifests in aggression toward the Pearce children, who have done nothing wrong and who are in a precarious circumstance themselves.
While Mrs. Griffith is technically aiding the war effort, she is not doing so out of the goodness of her heart or out of compassion for the evacuated children. Historically, host families were paid ten shillings and six pence a day for their first foster child and eight shillings and six pence for additional children. One of the first questions Mrs. Griffith asks Miss Carr when she arrives with the children is about her payment for their care. Before this, the children had not known “that they were a source of income. They were suddenly grateful that the Forresters had never mentioned this fact” (128). Being thought of strictly as a financial asset or burden is impersonal, even cold. To the children, who are looking for a new family, this is immediate evidence to them that they have not found it.
Anna begins crying once Mrs. Griffith retreats, saying “This isn’t the one […] The one we’re meant to be with. We haven’t found the right family yet” (131). This expands The Meaning of Family for the Pearce children. The children’s priority is finding a loving family—somewhere they feel comfortable, cared for, appreciated, and loved. Mrs. Griffith’s priority is feeding her own family and providing for their basic needs. To her, the Pearces are a way to afford basic necessities, and they are three extra bodies who can do chores and earn money. The Pearce children are entirely unfamiliar with living in want. Edmund is incredulous that her Saturday grocery list has “no jam” on it, and ventures that “she just forgot to write it down” (153). Just as it does not occur to him that some people cannot afford a coat, it does not occur to him that jam is a luxury.
This shopping excursion introduces the children to the uncomfortable reality that poor families cannot afford what they need to live. The children do not have enough money for the meat Mrs. Griffith requested and are only able to get it all because Mr. Forrester “[throws] in the liver for free” out of guilt and pity (155). This “sudden awareness of want” makes the children “uncomfortable” (155). They are unused to the reality poor, rural English families must live with every day. Even though she does live with this reality, Mrs. Griffith is anxious about the children “telling people [she hasn’t] enough money” (157). For her, financial need means a loss of dignity, even though her financial circumstances are beyond her control. These stressors affect her quality of life in material ways, and Mrs. Griffith cannot cope with these stressors and care for the Pearce children, which leads her to neglect them.
The Importance of Stories in Difficult Times shows as the children continue to rely on stories as coping mechanisms. Anna, who is used to being doted upon as the youngest, finds herself caring for children younger than her for the first time. One of the ways she does this is by reading Winnie the Pooh to them, offering them comfort through a wholesome children’s tale. William continues to care for Edmund and Anna by reading them bedtime stories, and all three children seek refuge and companionship with Mrs. Müller. The library becomes a sanctuary for them; Mrs. Müller is a kind, safe presence who allows them to stay warm and comfortable and enables their passion for reading. Mrs. Müller exhibits the very traits the children are looking for in a parent, though they have not yet developed a familiar bond.
