The+Overspill


 * The Big Questions: How does this chapter fit the novel as a whole / Why is it important / What should a good reader take away from this chapter?**

This section tells the story of Jess helping his father clear a garden and build a footbridge to surprise/please Jess' mother while she is away visiting Jess' Uncle Luden in California. When a release of water from a Challenger Paper company reservoir washes away the bridge, the family is still brought closer through the experience. Most of the story is told in straightforward terms, but the the chapter ends on a surreal note, using the image of an expanding tear as a symbol for the family's love for each other. (Meyer)

This sections sets the setting for at least the opening portion of the book. Early on this section basically gives you some insight into characters' relationships with each other as well as almost inadvertently giving you some background information on Jess and others. A good reader should take away the character's names and how the characters connect withe one another ( are they related, do the like each other, etc...), and a good reader should ponder if the author is writing in a realistic fashion, or if he is writing a fantasy book. (Ude)

This opening part of the book is meant to show the relationship between the family. When the father and son come together to do something nice for the mom that is away on a trip, it shows that they care about each other, and are close as a family. It gets even deeper when the mom comes home and finds both of them crying, understands their pain, and then starts crying too. This shows that understand each other and act together almost as a team. When one of them is hurting, they all are hurting. Based on the title, //I Am One of You Forever,// I would say that it fits into the story by saying that they come close and that they will be part of the family forever. A good reader should take away from this chapter that they live on a farm, they care for each other, and that the author uses metaphors and similies alot, like at the end of the story. The reader should watch out for the metaphors and know when he is reading them and when he is not. (Miller)

The opening of a book usually displays who the characters are, where the story takes place, and what is going on. This chapter does most of that. Basic first chapter stuff. Everything seems normal until the large tear engulfs the family of the main character. My first thought was, did they drown? It didn't even occur to me that maybe there is a logical explanation behind it: a metaphor. My mind was trained to think either this book is realistic of fantasy. If only I could let go of that mentality and realize that authors try to confuse the reader. I guess this fits into the story as everyone has said before, it shows the relationship between Jess and his family. They really are close and what kind of family is one without a stable relationship? (Matthews)

This introduction is introducing everyone and where they live and what they do and basic information about the farm and family. It is important because it is sort of the foundation of the book because it gives everything you need to know about the book. A good reader should start to think about what could happen in the book based on what was told in the section and pay close attention to metaphors and similies and how they help get a better interpretation of the book. (Sanders)

The Overspill is the introduction to the book, and begins to explain how the families operates and their ways of life. In the chapters beginning few paragraphs, we learn that the mother traveled 5,000 miles on train just to help out their Uncle Luden who was in trouble. That shows how the family feels the need to help out their family. But then Joe Robert and Jess begin building a gift for the mom while she is on her trip. On top of their daily chores, they spend hours on this project just to please her. When they were tying the ribbon to top off the present, the proud feeling they had was destroyed by the recently open floodgates. The present they had worked countless hours on was destroyed. The instance feeling of hatred towards the Challenger Paper guys was wiped away when the mom understood what was going on and began to cry with them. This shows the families relationship is inseparable. They won't let anyone or anything come in between them. (Cravens)

The Overspill is the first impression of the book, being the first thing we read. Therefore it is intensional that the reader gets a feel/mood of the set and people. This first chapter shows the compassion and love that the family has for each other, it shows us what kind of a family we are going to be reading about. Through making the garden and bridge (gift for the mother) the father and son show how meticulous and precise they are by attempting to make their present flawless. They obviously had a lot of other chores to do considering they had to manage a whole farm, but they put forward that extra effort to do something for someone they love. Sadly, some things are just too good to be true. Happy-ending books can never be as intriguing and amusing as misfortunate and suspenseful books. And the mother was crying when she saw her family and the bridge, but I believe that it was not because she was upset about the bridge breaking and garden flooding, I believe she was crying tears of joy. Her seeing all the effort and compassion put into building the present was just as rewarding as having the garden and bridge. This first chapter does a great job of showing love. (Puskas)

The Overspill is a foreshadow of the rest of the book, which also gives us an introduction to some of the characters and the setting of this town. The author shows the relationship with each character, with two simple concepts, a bridge, and a present. The first character, Jess and Joe, are building a present that has to be perfect. At first I was wondering why he was so focused on even the ribbon being perfect, it was only his mom and moms are suppose to like any present there son gives them. Then realizing how much he loved her and cared about this present being perfect, he also just wanted her to accept him and love him. At the same time the footbridge had broke and the water was flooding, which was ruining the garden that they seemed to have worked really hard on. When his mom got out of the car and saw that the footbridge had broke and ruined the garden, she also saw the present that was made from scratch and the love and perfection he had put into this present. The flooding of the garden was something she could replace, but this present he had poured his heart into meant the world to her and nothing could replace that. (Izlar)

**Important Quotes (and commentary)**

//"Despite the extra chores, I found it exciting. Our friendship took a new and stronger turn, became something of a mild conspiracy. New sets of signals evolved between us. We met now on freshly neutral ground somewhere between my boyhood and his boyishness, and for me it was a heady rise in status. We were clumsy housekeepers, there were lots of minor mishaps, and the tag-line we formulated soonest was: 'Let's just not tell Mama about this one.' I adored that thought."//


 * This passage establishes Joe Robert's childish nature as well as Jess' longing to share his father's world. Jess relishes the opportunity to be something of an equal with his father for perhaps the first time. (Meyer)

//"The tear on my mother's cheek got larger and larger. It detached from her face and became a shiny globe, widening outward like an inflating balloon. At first the tear floated in air between them, but as it expanded it took my mother and father into itself. I saw them suspended, separate but beginning to drift slowly toward one another. Then my mother looked past my father's shoulder, looked through the bright skin of the tear, at me. The tear enlarged until at last it took me in too. It was warm and salt. As soon as I got used to the strange light inside the tear, I began to swim clumsily toward my parents."//


 * This explains how the family is close and understands each other. It shows that they can almost feel each other's pain. (Miller)

//"I don't know how long we stared downstream before we were aware that my mother had arrived. When we first saw her she had already gotten out of the taxi, which sat idling in the road."//
 * Being completly transfixed in their work which was just ruined, Joe Robert and Jess had no idea that Jess' mom had come home. The had put blood, sweat, and tears into their work just so that they could watch it all be washed away by the water of the floodgates. (Matthews)

//"He gestured towards the swamped bridge and the red ribbon fluttered in his fingers. She looked where he pointed and, as I watched, understanding came into her face, little by little."//
 * This quote shows how the family is so understanding and close knit that a simple gesture can explain everything. (Cravens)

//"The house was surronded by hills to the north and east and south. Directly above us lay the family farm and my grandmother's house. Two miles behind the south hill was the town of Tipton, where the Challenger Paper and Fiber Corporation smoked eternally, smudging the Carolina mountain landscape for miles.//" **Moments of astonishingly good writing**
 * This excerpt from the first page gives you a vivid image of their town and how their town is small and rural, whereas the surrounding towns are big industrial urban cities. (Izlar)

//"We struggled heroically. I remember pleasantly the destruction of the vines and the cutting of the drainage ditch neat and straight into the field. The ground was so soft that we could slice down with our spades and bring up squares of dark blue mud and lay them along side by side. They gleamed like tile. Three long afternoons completed the ditch, and then my father brought out the big awkward shoulder scythe and whetted the blade until I could hear it sing on his thumb-ball when he tested it. And then he waded into the thicket of thorny vine and began slashing. For a long time, nothing happened, but finally the vines began to fall back, rolling up in tangles like barbarous handwriting. With a pitchfork I worried these tangles into a heap. Best of all was the firing, the clear yellow flame and the sizzle and snap of the vine-ribs and thorns, and the thin green smoke rising above the new-green willows. The delicious smell of it."//
 * Besides containing one of my all-time favorite similes, this passage sings with sensory details--sights, smells, sounds, feelings and textures. Terrific descriptive writing. (Meyer)

//"When I walked back and forth across the bridge I heard and felt a satisfactory drumming. The gate latch made a solid cluck and the gate arch, pinned together of old plaster lath, made me feel that in crossing the bridge I was entering a different world, not simply going into the garden."//


 * This passage was great because it was a really great job describing the bridge, and how he made it seem not like any old garden bridge. (Miller)

"//And then on the yard side it wrenched away from the log piers, and when that side headed downstream the other side tore away too, and we had a brief glimpse of the bridge parrallel in the stream like a strange boat and saw the farthest advance of the flood framed in the quaint lattice arch. The bridge twirled about and the corners caught against both banks and it went over on its side, throwing up the naked underside of the planks like a barn door blown shut. Water piled up behind this damming and finally poured over and around it, eating at the borders of the garden and lawn."//
 * This passage does and excellent job of describing the bridge being destroyed. This is a long passage for only three senences. The length of the sentences helps to show how quickl all of this was happening for Jess and his dad. One minute their bridge was there, and the next minute it was gone. (McKinnie)