Becoming Naomi Leon

88 pages • 2 hours read

Becoming Naomi Leon

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2004

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Prologue-Chapter 6

Part 1, Chapters 7-11

Part 2, Prologue-Chapter 16

Part 2, Chapter 17-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Part 1, Chapters 7-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary: “An Unkindness of Ravens”

Six days later, the children prepare for parent-teacher conferences at their school. All week, Skyla has showered Naomi with gifts: glittery accessories, press-on nails, a new backpack, tiger-striped slippers, and more. Skyla uses Clive’s money to buy gifts for everyone except Owen. The night before the conferences, Skyla reveals her latest gift for Naomi: a matching mother-daughter outfit. Skyla also plans to dye her hair to match Naomi’s. As they go to bed, the children are hopeful and anxious that their opportunity to show their mother around school goes perfectly.

In the morning, Skyla wakes up red-eyed and smelling of “sour milk” (64). She’s in a bad mood and yells at the children while she braids Naomi’s hair for school. She reminds them to call her Skyla Jones at school—not mom “because it [makes] her feel old,” and not Terri Lynn “because it wasn’t pretty” (65).

Owen dresses in what Naomi calls his “going-to-a-wedding outfit” (67), and he’s covered his chest with clear tape. At school, a bully wastes no time taunting the Outlaw children, pulling the tape from Owen’s chest piece by piece. When Owen drops to the ground and spasms, the bully hurriedly puts the tape back and shouts a derogatory term at Owen as he scampers off. Naomi stands frozen, speechless, and frustrated by her sense of powerlessness. Cheerful and unflustered, Owen tells Naomi he fell on purpose. Angrily, Naomi asks Owen why he doesn’t care what people think of him. She suggests that others (including Skyla) would like him better if he tried to please them. Naomi immediately regrets her outburst. Owen ignores her and puts a piece of tape on her backpack as they head into the school.

After school, Skyla skips the conferences. The Outlaw children wait outside the school two and a half hours before Naomi’s teacher finds them waiting outside. The principal calls Gram at Fabiola’s house, and she arrives quickly to pick them up. When Naomi returns to the school office to retrieve her forgotten backpack, she overhears the adults talking about how Skyla has “been in and out of rehab hospitals and halfway houses for years” (73). She also hears something she never knew before: Their father wanted custody of them, and Skyla denied it. Naomi doesn’t understand most of what she overhears about Skyla, but she also wonders why Gram never told them the things she just overheard.

Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “A Burden of Mules”

Trying to cheer them up, Gram drives Owen and Naomi to their favorite place: the Spray ʼN Play. The Outlaws usually go to Spray ʼN Play to celebrate or to cheer themselves up when times are difficult. Naomi cynically wonders if Gram thinks that ice cream will cheer them up after the day they’ve had. The children usually look forward to making some ice cream sundaes and watching the cars run through the car wash. This time, everything they enjoy most is out of service.

Unable to contain her feelings, Naomi asks Gram about everything she overheard at school. When Gram explains rehab hospitals, halfway houses, and Skyla’s mood medicine, Naomi asks Gram why she didn’t tell the children about it before. Gram reveals that she only found out when Skyla arrived just a few weeks ago, and Skyla didn’t want the children to know. Gram was hoping that Skyla was serious about making a clean start and she hoped they wouldn’t have to talk about it. Gram also reveals the children’s father sends a “sizable amount” of money a couple of times a year (80), even though Skyla told him to never contact them again. Before Naomi can get too excited, Gram shares that she has no way to contact him.

Skyla doesn’t reappear until three nights later. Skyla dismisses their anger at her abandonment and happily announces that she’s bringing her boyfriend Clive to Thanksgiving dinner. When they don’t respond positively, Skyla shouts at Gram for always, “raining on all of [her] joy” (84). She wants the children to come outside to see a gift she’s brought with her. With Gram’s reluctant approval, the children go outside to see that Skyla has purchased Owen a bike. Although she’s still unhappy with Skyla, seeing Owen’s joyful response makes Naomi happy for him. Openly appalled, Gram doesn’t say anything, but she does help Owen test out the new bike. When Naomi thanks Skyla for Owen’s gift, Skyla scowls and snaps at Naomi. She reminds her that the gifts come from Clive who “wants to be friends with [Naomi], especially” (86). Skyla pressures Naomi to be extra friendly to Clive and to thank him when he comes over for Thanksgiving.

Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary: “A Shiver of Sharks”

On Thanksgiving Day, the family prepares to host dinner at the Baby Beluga. After reminding Naomi again to be grateful to Clive when he comes over, Skyla leaves to meet him. Naomi and Gram decorate the table and prepare for guests. Naomi places some of her carvings on a manzanita tree branch to create a centerpiece. Clive and Skyla arrive at dinner last.

At dinner, the family makes polite conversation about Naomi’s centerpiece carvings. Bernardo and Fabiola talk about Naomi’s skill being a family gift. Skyla remembers aloud that Santiago used to leave the week before Christmas for La Noche de los Rábanos, the radish night, an annual carving contest in Oaxaca, Mexico. Carvers come from all over Oaxaca to carve elaborate scenes out of radishes.

When the family asks Clive about his family and origins, he says he doesn’t have any contact with family except his daughter. Clive and Skyla let it slip that they are moving to Las Vegas, and they want Naomi to come with them to “watch out for [Clive’s daughter Sapphire] like a big sister” (96). Shocked at their revelation, the family gently protests that Naomi isn’t going anywhere.

Gram excuses Naomi and herself to work on dessert and wash dishes. Clive comes inside to use the bathroom. When he returns, he pointedly asks Gram about her finances. At the dinner table, he mentioned that he took his daughter’s mother to court to get full custody because he proved that she “wasn’t responsible with the state money, always spending too much on the kid” (95). Now, he asks to know how much aid Gram receives for two children. Gram shuts down the conversation and angrily informs him that “Naomi is not going to Las Vegas to be a babysitter or otherwise” (99). Skyla finds that they’ve been arguing, and she reprimands Clive for bringing the topic up too soon.

After dessert, Owen invites people to play him at checkers. Owen plays well enough to beat most adults at the game. When he plays with Skyla, he lets her win several times. When the family tells her he has been letting her win, Skyla is insulted, and Owen beats her at the next game. Clive takes over and plays Owen for a few games. Impressed, he announces to Skyla that he would set Owen up to play other adults in a betting scheme and they could “make a fortune” (103). Throughout the conversation, Skyla continues to insult Owen’s appearance and intelligence. When he was letting her win, she meanly chastised him saying, “He needs to learn how to use his brain” (101). Now, she agrees with Clive’s scheme, saying, “To look at him, you wouldn’t think he had a brain in his body or could beat anybody at anything, especially with him being crippled—” (103). Her insults effectively end the dinner.

When they get in the car, Skyla urges Naomi to thank Clive for the gifts that he’s purchased. Naomi, too petrified to speak clearly, ekes out a stuttered thank you. As she walks away, Naomi notices beer 12-pack of beer in the backseat of the Mustang. Skyla tells her to “keep [her] mouth shut” about it (106).

Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary: “A Schizophrenia of Hawks”

A week later, Gram announces that she will have to cancel Owen’s doctor’s visit because she has an emergency with a wedding dress client. Gram and Fabiola need to work day and night to finish the project. Skyla volunteers to take Owen to the hospital instead. Naomi observes that Skyla has been kind and sweet all week long. She hopes that Skyla doing Gram this favor will help ease the tension between them. Skyla hasn’t mentioned Las Vegas again, which has also helped the entire family calm down. Skyla soothes Gram’s worries and offers to bring home dinner on the way back from the children’s hospital. Gram agrees to let Skyla take them.

While Owen gets his routine X-ray and examination, Naomi and Skyla sit in the waiting area. Skyla takes a couple of trips to the bathroom. Naomi notices that she smells strongly of her gardenia perfume when she returns from the first trip. Beneath the gardenia, Naomi smells something that reminds her of “Gram’s Christmas rum cake” (111). After a second trip to the bathroom, Skyla smells entirely of rum cake, confirming that she has started drinking again.

When the doctors call Skyla and Naomi into the debriefing room, Owen and his doctors exchange cheerful greetings. Skyla interrupts by brusquely asking, “what can you do about Owen?” (113). The doctors send Owen off to a playroom before addressing Skyla’s question. The doctors explain that Owen is perfectly healthy, has an extremely high IQ, and has had all the surgeries that can be done for a boy his age and size. When the doctors say he’s just going to be what they affectionately call a “Funny Looking Kid” (114) for a few more years before he’s old enough to have more surgeries, Skyla becomes outraged. On the drive home, Skyla drives too fast and swerves in and out of traffic on the highway while drinking from a “plastic travel [bottle] she [keeps] pulling out of her purse” (116).

Without stopping for dinner, they go straight to Baby Beluga. When they arrive, Skyla sits the children down, and she yells at them for “embarrassing” her (114). She insists that if Owen doesn’t stop wearing the tape on his shirt, she will throw his bike in the trash. During her rampage, Skyla takes a phone call from Clive. After hanging up, she announces that she and Naomi are leaving for Las Vegas right now. First to Clive’s house, then to Las Vegas on Saturday.

When Naomi refuses, Skyla becomes even angrier, and she slaps Naomi across the face. Both Naomi and Owen start crying. Skyla threatens them again saying, “There’s more where that came from, Naomi” (120-21). Skyla threatens that something bad will happen to Gram if they don’t obey her. Seeing that the children are afraid of her, Skyla adopts a syrupy sweet tone. She tries to coax Naomi into obedience, claiming that she and Naomi are “two peas in a pod,” that Las Vegas will be fun, and having Sapphire around will be like having “a little sister” (121).

Naomi pretends to go along with Skyla’s plan and creates enough of a distraction to get herself and Owen out the door. They run across the grove to Fabiola and Bernardo’s house.

Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary: “A Flight of Swallows”

Skyla follows the children across the grove to Fabiola and Bernardo’s house. Inside, Gram tells the children to hide in the shed with Bernardo. Bernardo turns out the light, and when they hear Skyla approaching, he tells the children to stay there until it’s safe. The three adults face Skyla, who threatens to bring the police and take Naomi away. Gram reminds Skyla that calling the police while drunk might not go the way she hopes. She also mentions that the children have a father who might disagree with her taking them away. Skyla claims that Clive has told her everything she needs to know to win a court case. Gram responds in kind saying, “I’d go to the end of the earth to protect that child. I’ll go to court if that’s what I have to do” (126). Outnumbered, Skyla backs down, but she announces that she’ll be back on Saturday at noon to collect Naomi and she will involve the police if anybody tries to resist her.

That night, Fabiola and the dog, Lulu, stay with the Outlaws in Baby Beluga. In the morning, the children stay home from school. While Gram goes out to run some “private errands” (127), the children stay home with Bernardo. Everyone moves about anxiously, especially Naomi, who cries and hides when a visitor for Bernardo knocks at the door. At night, Gram and Fabiola ignore Wheel of Fortune on TV to talk together quietly. When Gram tucks Naomi into bed that night, she assures Naomi that she doesn’t need to worry about being taken away to Las Vegas on Saturday morning.

Exhausted, Naomi sleeps a sweet, dreamless sleep. When she wakes up, she believes that they’re experiencing an earthquake. She and Owen run to the kitchen and living area to check on Gram. They fear that the worst has happened, but instead, they see Gram and Fabiola sitting at the table. Cars pass by on a highway out the window. Gram and Fabiola explain that they are taking a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico to visit Fabiola and Bernardo’s family. They’ll spend Christmas there, attend La Noche de los Rábanos, and search for their father, Santiago. Gram hopes Santiago will write a letter of support urging the judge to award custody to Gram. Gram explains that she met with a lawyer to get temporary guardianship of the children and schedule a hearing in court.

Part 1, Chapters 7-11 Analysis

In the second half of part one, truths about Skyla that the family hoped would stay in the past disrupt the present. The disordered infiltration, or rabble, of the past becomes more disorderly.

Skyla provokes the past events coming to light. Her descent into her alcoholism and mood disorders makes the connection between past and present palpable. When Skyla gets drunk in the bathroom at the children’s hospital, then throws a fit about Owen’s physical condition in front of the doctors, some dots are subtly connected. Owen has had physical defects since birth, and his mother struggles with alcoholism. It is possible that Skyla drank during her pregnancy, which may have caused the physical challenges that Skyla is so angry about.

Skyla’s announcement that she and Clive plan to take Naomi away serves as another inciting incident in the plot and drives character development. Skyla and Clive’s revelation poses a threat, and the family quietly gears up for action, which comes to a head in Chapters 11 and 12. The changes become obvious after Skyla’s meltdown, but Gram shows she has been preparing all along when she reveals that “we have Clive to thank for giving me the idea” to go to Legal Aid (134). During Skyla’s meltdown, the anger Naomi has been repressing bubbles over. She defies Skyla, saying, “…you can’t tell us what to do [...] You left us. You didn’t…want us and then you didn’t even let our father see us” (119-20). Naomi wonders where her words are coming from, even as she speaks them aloud. These are the first signs that these encounters with Skyla force Naomi to live up to her nickname “Naomi the lion”—she’s brave, bold, and speaks forcefully enough to be heard.

Skyla’s abrasiveness pushes Owen’s cheerfulness and positive outlook to the limit. When the children hide out at the Morales home, Owen asks Naomi, “why doesn’t Skyla want me, too?” (124). As Naomi tries to comfort him, Owen interrupts her, as if admitting aloud to himself and Naomi for the first time, “I think she never wanted me when I was a baby because I wasn’t…you know, like everyone else, and I think she doesn’t want me now” (125). Naomi reminds Owen that Gram wants them and that their father wanted him, too. Here, during Owen’s lowest emotional moment of the novel, Naomi begins to practice positive thinking.

Throughout the first half of the novel, Owens attempts to impress Skyla fall flat. Owen’s response to Skyla at Thanksgiving resembles his response to the school bully; Owen turns the tables to make the aggressor look bad in front of others. During a game of checkers, Skyla manages to turn Owen’s prowess at checkers into another opportunity to disparage him. In a twist of dramatic irony, Skyla appears to be the unintelligent player, because she doesn’t realize Owen is letting her win. To everyone who knows Owen, Skyla’s unkindness, immaturity, and lack of motherly love couldn’t be more apparent. The novel’s dialogue drives the point home when Gram asks, “Skyla, why would any grown-up take that much delight in winning over a small child?” (100).

Skyla’s arrival ultimately prompts the Outlaw family to legalize Gram’s guardianship, bringing them closer together. It also sets off a series of events that prompts them to travel to Mexico, engage another aspect of their cultural identity, and find their father. These events are what Gram and Naomi alluded to when they said, “the good and the bad of any situation [are] sometimes the same” (129).

Clive, Skyla’s boyfriend, matches Skyla’s lack of integrity with his every move. The bluebird that Naomi carves for the Thanksgiving centerpiece functions as a symbol of happiness. She calls it “the prettiest and most delicate thing I’d ever done” (89). Clive notices it but doesn’t value it; he washes his greasy hands with the soap carving and leaves it on the bathroom sink. His disregard is both literal and symbolic. Clive reveals that he sees children as objects throughout the family gathering, sharing that he fought for custody of his daughter to get money from the state. Later, he thinks of ways to use Own in a gambling scheme to “make a fortune” (103). Clive reveals that he and Skyla plan to double the amount of money they get from the state when he pointedly asks Gram, “But you must get money from the state [...] That’s got to be a bundle for two kids, right?” (98).

Symbolically, life falls apart when Skyla skips the parent-teacher conferences. When Gram takes the children to Spray ‘N Play, nothing they love is working. Both the ice cream machine and the car wash need maintenance. At the end of the visit, the car wash starts up again. This change foreshadows a happy ending. The car wash serves as a metaphor for the Outlaws as they face temporary challenges with Skyla’s arrival, not permanent ones. It also suggests those troubles might make their family unit function better by the novel’s end the same way that maintenance helps machines function better.

Naomi does not necessarily believe in the power of positive thinking, and sometimes the attitude annoys her, especially in Owen. In a moment of frustration after Owen has been bullied, Naomi yells that their mother would like him better if he tried to please her by being normal. She becomes immediately ashamed, though her outburst reveals that part of Naomi’s identity development will revolve around defining herself for herself instead of by what others think of her.

As she prepares for the conferences, Naomi repeatedly says that she wants to do things the way Skyla likes for her to do them. Examples include being quiet in the morning, wearing clothes Skyla picked out, and even getting her hair braided are all things that Naomi does because she wants Skyla’s approval. Although Naomi hasn’t made up her mind about Skyla, she’s still eager to please her. But where Naomi tries to change herself, Owen continues to be himself as much as possible. He dresses in his fancy outfit to impress Skyla, but he continues to cover himself with tape, even though Skyla doesn’t like it. In the second half of the novel, Naomi’s character development revolves around her finding her identity based on what she knows and likes about herself.