Boy’s LIFE 1

1. Boy’s LIFE 1 By Robert McCammon

2. Quotations • “I don’t want you to tell anybody about Miss Grace or that house. I want you to forget you were there, and what you saw and heard. Can you do that?” • “The man in the car reached out and grabbed my wrist. His fingernails were blue. His fingers bit hard into my skin, and he said, ‘Come with me, down in the dark.’”

3. Quotations • “Never again would we mention to each other the movie where Martians plotted to conquer the earth, town by town, father by mother by child. We had both seen the face of the invader.” • “’You never know what’s ahead for you, and that’s the—’Truth, he was about to say, but he never finished because we came around a wooded bend and a brown car jumped out of the forest right in front of us and Dad yelped like he was hornet-stung as his foot punched the brake.”

4. quotations • “The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones dies. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People have their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do. In this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us.”

5. The Big Questions • What is the inciting incident of the novel? • What types of things are different in small town America 1964 from small town America today? • What makes Granddaddy Jaybird an eccentric character? • How is Cory’s life different from Ben’s?

6. What to look for Next… • Metaphor • Simile • Foreshadowing • Personification

7. MATCHING Midnight Mona “Bronco” Moorwood Thatcher Vernon Thatcher Cory’s bike Reverend Levoy Nila Castile The Lady Gavin Green Feather • The Blaylocks • The Demon • Old Moses • Grandadddy Jaybird • Mr. Sculley