The Ogress and the Orphans

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-9

Chapters 10-15

Chapters 16-19

Chapters 20-24

Chapters 25-30

Chapters 31-36

Chapters 37-42

Chapters 43-49

Chapters 50-54

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Judgment Does Not Give Us Information

The characters judge others throughout The Ogress and the Orphans, leading to misunderstandings and division. In Chapter 1, the stone tells the reader that “it is a terrible practice to prejudge anyone” because judging someone before you get to know them only gives assumptions, not truths (3). Through the judgments the townspeople make about the Ogress and one another, as well as how the crows judge anything new, The Ogress and the Orphans shows how judgments harm rather than inform.

From the moment the Ogress moves to the edge of Stone-in-the-Glen, the Mayor badmouths her to the people, and the people take the Mayor’s words as fact, using them to form judgments about the Ogress based on half-truths and biased stories. Fairy tales have given ogres a bad reputation as creatures that destroy towns and eat people. In the early chapters, the stone debunks these tales, explaining that ogres are gentle creatures who live a long time and are kind to those they meet. Since the people do not know of the stone, they only have the Mayor’s perspective, and since they have complete trust in the Mayor because they believe he has their best interests in mind, they don’t question him. The result is the people prejudging the Ogress, which leads to them blaming and attacking her because she seems like a villain. All these judgments are incorrect, and once the people meet the Ogress, they realize their decisions were wrong because they weren’t based on facts.

The townspeople also judge one another. Before the Mayor came and the Library burned down, the people of Stone-in-the-Glen got along and supported one another. The Library brought people together, which led to them learning from one another, and once it was gone, the people no longer had anything forcing them to form a community. The Mayor widened the division caused by the Library’s destruction by telling the people that their neighbors were out to get them. As a result, the townspeople started judging others in a way they never had before. This judgment led to distrust and more division until no one trusted anyone but the Mayor. When the Ogress and orphans start delivering books, the people meet to discuss ideas, which allows them to remember how they thought of their neighbors before the Mayor turned them against one another. As with the Ogress, the people learn the truth of one another, and those truths overpower the judgments they made while they believed only the Mayor. The judgments made by the townspeople show how getting to know people leads to fewer problems than making blanket assessments based on assumptions.

While the townspeople judge new and existing members of the town, the crows judge things that are different. When the Ogress first came to Stone-in-the-Glen, the crows initially judged her based on the tales that painted ogres as vile creatures. The Ogress subverted these judgments by being kind to the crows, and that kindness won over their loyalty. The crows were content to live with the Ogress, and when the sheep and dog first came to the farm, they judged the new animals because the crows were worried the situation at the farm would change. Only after discovering how the sheep and dog enhanced the crows’ lives do the crows fully accept the animals. The crows judged the sheep and dog on what they could do for the crows, which had no negative effect on the sheep or dog—only on the crows. Later, the crows give the orphans a chance as soon as they come to the farm, and in doing so, they allow the children to help the Ogress, which leads to the book’s happy ending. When the crows put aside their tendency to judge, they were more welcoming, and more was accomplished.

Judgment may feel like it protects us when we come across a new person or situation, but that protection is an allusion. By getting to know someone, we learn who they truly are, and that truth offers far more accurate information on which to make a decision. The people judged the Mayor based on his good looks and seeming heroics, which led to their town being destroyed. If the people had gotten to know the Mayor before trusting him, they would have seen his true nature and wouldn’t have been fooled into making all the other judgments they made.

Facts Matter

Facts are blocks on which we build our understanding of the world, but they are also easily dismissed. The Ogress and the Orphans explores the effect of facts and lies, showing many different ways that facts can be manipulated or misused, as well as how pure facts do more than simply provide information. Through the danger of empty words, the “everyone knows” mindset, and shunning the “other,” The Ogress and the Orphans shows how facts are critically important.

The characters of The Ogress and the Orphans use empty words with no meaning behind them to make their points of view known. The Mayor makes several speeches in which he riles up the crowd without making any commitments to help the town. In Chapter 8, the butcher threatens Anthea with the rule that she’ll be kicked out of the Orphan House at age 14, and although Anthea has no proof that he speaks the truth, she believes him because the idea terrifies her. Empty words evoke a strong emotional response, and those emotions keep the novel's characters from thinking logically. If the people really listened to the Mayor’s speeches, they would realize he isn’t actually saying anything, which they finally do at the end of the book. Similarly, Anthea is a firm believer in logic and finding proof, but when the butcher tells her about the rule, she believes it without question because her strong emotional response keeps her from thinking clearly. Later, she does learn that the rule is real, but if she’d been thinking clearly, she would have sought proof before panicking. Empty words may or may not be true, but they only matter once they are proven true or false by facts.

In Chapter 17, a townsperson says, “Everyone knows that ogres are prone to wickedness” (123). The words “everyone knows” assume that “everyone” has lived the same experiences, has the same outlook on the world, and gets their information from the same source. While this may be true for most people in Stone-in-the-Glen at this point in the story, it is not true for the orphans or likely anyone outside the town. “Everyone knows” are words used to give weight to statements that are often untrue. If someone says “everyone knows” something, they are bolstering their version of the truth with social proof that may or may not be true. It is highly unlikely that “everyone,” not just the people in the speaker’s circle, thinks the same way they do or “knows” everything they believe to be true. Thus, “everything knows” is rarely followed by facts, and statements that use this false form of social proof should be researched for accuracy.

The rejection of the “other” is another way people dispute facts. In Chapter 34, the crows refuse to believe Harold because Harold posits he spoke to a child, and the crows are certain that human children do not speak the crow language. Harold spoke to the orphans, but the crows have never spoken to a human child, so they do not believe Harold possibly could have. The crows reject Harold’s experience as untrue because they have not experienced it themselves. This represents the practice of rejecting the “other,” where “other” means the lived experiences of people different from us. Two individuals who have grown up in the same culture and timeframe will have very different experiences of the world, and two individuals who grew up amid vastly different cultures and societies will have even more diverse experiences. Neither set of experiences is right or wrong. Both are equally valid, and each will have its own set of truths.

Facts and truths are similar but not the same. Facts are verifiable truths, but truths are whatever experiences and beliefs align with the life a given person has lived. The crows have not held a conversation with a child who speaks crow. Their truth is that they have not spoken crow with a child. The facts are that children can learn the crow language, and this fact is not made untrue by the experience of the crows. A person may hold whatever personal truth they like, but those truths do not change the facts of the world.

Kindness Is a Choice

The characters in The Ogress and the Orphans make many decisions throughout the book that revolve around the choice between being kind or being cruel to others because “goodness and Wickedness have no meaning if they are not defined by choices or actions” (211-12). Through the actions of the Ogress, animals, and orphans; the ways the townspeople change; and the Mayor’s greed, the book explores how we may only be kind if we choose to be.

The actions of the Ogress and animals toward the town exemplify choosing to be kind, even in the face of cruelty. Long before the townspeople make their dislike of the Ogress known, the Ogress sees the sorrow in the town and chooses to be kind, hoping it will lift the people’s spirits. She leaves treats on doorsteps without expecting thanks or reward, and she is glad to do so because she wants to be a good neighbor. The Ogress embodies kindness in its purest form. She wants only to lessen the suffering of others and bring joy to difficult times. She chooses to be kind because she believes kindness begets kindness, but rather than hoping for kindness in return, she wishes for kindness to spread and eventually make its way back to her.

While the Ogress exemplifies kindness, the townspeople show the journey toward the choice to be kind. Before the Library burned, the townspeople were kind to one another, but based on how quickly they became distrustful and resentful after the fire, they likely also took one another for granted, expecting favors and feeling ripped off when their acts of kindness were not reciprocated. During the Mayor’s reign, the people are consumed by suspicion and anger. They do not choose to be kind; instead, they decide that everyone is their enemy and that showing kindness would only make them vulnerable. Secretly, though, the people are grateful for the gifts they receive from the Ogress, which means they truly wish for kindness to be directed at them. Only at the end of the book, when they finally meet the Ogress, do they realize that kindness goes both ways. The Ogress has been kind because it is her nature to be so, but the people cannot expect kindness if they have been cruel. When they start being kind without expectation, they feel good, and others feel good from their kindness, which means they respond with their own kindness. The people lost sight of how to be kind, but once they remember and start being kind, those acts of kindness multiply.

While the Ogress and townspeople learn the true meaning of being kind, the Mayor represents the opposite of kindness—greed and selfishness. The Library in Stone-in-the-Glen brought out the best in people and influenced community kindness. These things kept the people from worshipping the Mayor, so the Mayor burned down the Library to remove the only thing keeping the people from devoting themselves to him. In doing so, he also destroyed the town’s culture, but the Mayor doesn’t care because the only kind acts he’s interested in are ones made toward him that he doesn’t have to respond to. The Mayor’s greed and selfishness allow him to sow division in the town, which ends the acts of kindness, replacing them with distrust and anger. While the townspeople are grateful for the Ogress’s gifts, the Mayor appreciates them because once he discovers them, they belong to him and are one more thing he can hoard. The kind acts do not affect him because he is too concerned with greed to understand their significance, which ultimately leads to him being run out of Stone-in-the-Glen.

The Mayor chooses not to be kind, and once the people discover this, they lose all respect for him. Kindness allows people to show how much they care, and that caring helps relationships form. Choosing to be kind is the first step toward fostering community and support, and kindness inspires others to be kind, building upon itself until greed and selfishness are banished.