What the Fireflies Knew

Nia is four years older than KB and just short of 15 at the start of the novel. From KB’s point of view, Nia is an increasingly angry sibling who no longer has time to care for her sister during one of the most difficult times in both of their lives. Unbeknownst to any of her family, Nia’s volatile emotions are the result of classmates bullying her because of her father’s substance abuse and because her father struck her when she confronted him about his condition. She keeps these experiences secret, and doing so creates a distance between her and KB. The reader is hence also kept at a distance from Nia during the novel and made to observe the relationship through KB’s eyes.

During her summer in Lansing, Nia pursues relationships with peers and explores sex, typical of girls and teens at her developmental stage. KB is too young to go where her sister goes in both the figurative and literal sense, so these differences in developmental stage are one source of conflict for Nia and KB. The end of the conflict between KB and Nia occurs when Nia finally shares her secrets with her sister. Nia’s willingness to be an ally of her sister closes her arc and resolves one source of the major conflicts that KB faces in the novel. Kai Harris uses Nia’s opening up to initiate the novel’s falling action.

Granddaddy becomes the parental figure for KB and Nia at the start of the novel. Several important events before the present day of the novel shape who he is. Granddaddy’s cautious approach to KB’s interracial friendship with Bobby and Charlotte is a direct result of his experiences with racism as a child. As an adult, he contends with the death of his wife, leaving him the sole parent to Jacquee, KB and Nia’s mother. Granddaddy is unprepared for the challenges of raising a precocious and ambitious girl. When Jacquee is a teenager, he responds to her taking the first step to becoming an actor—getting a professional photo—by striking her and accusing her of being a promiscuous woman. He hence reinforces patriarchal notions here and educates KB about them in Chapter 7. The subsequent estrangement between him and Jacquee makes him the quiet and sad man KB and Nia encounter during the summer of 1995.

KB mistakes his withdrawn manner for lack of love. KB is irrepressible, so having her in the house eventually leads him to make loving gestures toward her, including showing her how to catch fireflies. He is the only character out of all the adult characters in the book who decides to tell KB the truth about her mother’s absence. The one lie that he tells KB is what he did to Jacquee all those years ago. His early experiences with racism and a desire to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past make him an important ally and guide as KB moves from early to late childhood.

Jacquee is the mother of KB and Nia. She is absent for most of the narrative because she is getting residential treatment for depression. KB characterizes her as a woman who always smiles no matter the troubles she encounters. These troubles include a conflict-filled marriage with the girls’ father over his substance abuse, finding shelter for her children when they lose their home as a result of her husband’s debts, and balancing being a breadwinner with being a parent. The most consequential decision Jacquee makes is rejecting her public presentation as a superwoman who can handle trauma stoically. She instead chooses to get help and to give her daughters to her father so that she can prioritize getting treatment.

Although Jacquee is physically absent, she interacts with KB over the phone. This positions Jacquee as the driver of a secondary plot that contextualizes the primary plot—while Jacquee is discussed by other characters, her plot becomes immediate during the phone calls. During one call, she tells KB to stay out of adult business. Her response to KB shows that she still believes that her daughter needs to be protected from the truth. Later in the novel, Harris signals Jacquee’s character development when she is more open with her daughter about her struggles. Her advice to KB is to tolerate imperfection in herself and others, including adults. When Jacquee returns, she does so by re-establishing a relationship with her own father and accepting financial help from him, actions that show that she is willing to take the advice she gives to KB.

KB and Nia’s father is dead during the present moment of the novel. Harris includes his death in the prologue and thereby establishes his death as the inciting incident that forces KB to come of age. He is a static but complex character who only appears in flashbacks. To KB, he is the father who teaches her the importance of thinking ahead, giving to get in relationships, and slowing down to live in the moment. On the other hand, he is the father who ruins birthdays, holidays, and most days because he is in the grips of addiction and is not able to be a present parent; KB also learns about him hitting Nia some time before his death. KB’s father is one of several adults whose imperfections help KB to learn that people can be complex and their actions contradictory.

Charlotte and Bobby are two white children who live close to Granddaddy’s house. Harris relies on their presence to develop the subplot around KB’s growing awareness of racism and class inequality. KB initially sees Charlotte as a potential friend who may help her live out the friendships that KB reads about in Anne of Green Gables. The ugly chalk picture that Charlotte draws of KB shows that Charlotte is unable to overcome the race and class prejudices that she learned from her mother. Bobby makes a gesture of friendship to KB by giving her rocks from his collection.

These would-be friendships don’t fully develop because of the children’s insensitive questions about KB’s family and their interrogations of her speech patterns (KB uses African American Vernacular/Black English). Their obliviousness and casual racism inspire KB to run away from Granddaddy’s house.

Charlotte and Bobby’s mother assails KB verbally when she accuses KB of stealing Charlotte’s bike. Her accusation is rooted in harmful stereotypes based on race, class, and family composition. KB’s encounter with this family thus introduces her to the reality of racism, classism, and normative ideas about what constitutes a family.