Fire from the Rock

Chapters 1-3

Reading Check

1. She is attacked by one of the Crandalls’ dogs, which have been trained to attack Black people. (Chapter 1)

2. She wears white gloves and a black straw hat everywhere she goes. She’s very proper. (Chapter 2)

3. He wants to be on the list of students who will integrate Central High School. He also mentions that Crandall’s dog got poisoned. (Chapter 3)

Short Answer

1. Mrs. Patterson cleans. Sylvia yells and paces. Gary storms out and paces the floor. Aunt Bessie yells and becomes sarcastic. (Chapter 1)

2. His choice will put him in great danger, and his family is afraid for him. His parents think the danger is an unnecessary risk for a young person. (Chapter 2)

3. As children, they observed the differences in their skin. Sylvia’s family goes to church on Sunday, and Rachel’s goes to synagogue on Saturday. As young adults, they observe the differences in clothes, music, and magazines. (Chapter 3)

Chapters 4-6

Reading Check

1. “They don’t want us, and we don’t need them.” (Chapter 4)

2. Those jobs are reserved for union members, and Black people cannot join the union. Mr. Patterson serves as a janitor instead. (Chapter 5)

3. Johnny Crandall and the Smith brothers. They call themselves the “Wild Cherry Cough Drops.” (Chapter 5)

4. She’s been selected to be on the list of students to integrate Central High School. (Chapter 6)

Short Answer

1. She’s worried her brother will be upset that he wasn’t asked to be on the list. (Chapter 6)

2. Miss Washington is preparing them for the real world, to be able to compete with white children for college and jobs. (Chapter 6)

3. Sylvia feels inadequate, nervous, shy, anxious, and inexperienced. (Chapter 6)

Chapters 7-9

Reading Check

1. She wants to talk to Sylvia’s parents about the risks and possibilities associated with Sylvia being among the students who integrate Central High School. (Chapter 7)

2. He puts them in his sermon and shows support for Sylvia’s opportunity to go to Central High School. (Chapter 8)

3. She sings very well. (Chapter 8)

4. The Zuckers, Sylvia’s best friend’s family (Chapter 9)

Short Answer

1. Gary is outspoken and potentially violent. If the white students at Central harassed him, he would fight back, which would undermine the nonviolent goals of the movement. (Chapter 7)

2. The community has a diversity of opinions. Some believe what they have is good enough and wanting more is dangerous and/or arrogant. Others believe that God will look out for Sylvia as she sets out on the important mission to integrate. (Chapter 8)

3. She feels it serves as another example of how white people see her and her community as less than human; she determines to seek better sources for information on Black history. (Chapter 9)

Chapters 10-12

Reading Check

1. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s (Chapter 10)

2. Miss America (Chapter 10)

3. He wants her to be normal, be his girlfriend, and not try to be a hero. (Chapter 11)

4. “See you later, alligator” and “After while, crocodile.” (Chapter 11)

Short Answer

1. She doesn’t consider herself beautiful, especially when compared to the women in Ebony magazine. (Chapter 10)

2. All the women in Ebony magazine are light skinned, and many could pass for white. Everywhere else on TV and in magazines, white women are the beauty standard. Toy companies don’t even make Black baby dolls. (Chapter 10)

Chapters 13-15

Reading Check

1. He was lynched. (Chapter 15)

2. Gary (Chapter 13)

Short Answer

1. She’s angry, frustrated, and worn out. She writes a poem about her feelings called “Scrambled Eggs.” (Chapter 13)

2. He flirted with Candy, and he keeps trying to influence her decision based on his needs. (Chapter 14)

3.  Gary tends toward violent action, and Sylvia is worried that he might influence Reggie.

Chapters 16-18

Reading Check

1. Martin Luther King Jr. (Chapter 16)

2. A record player (Chapter 17)

3. She must go to an interview with the board of education. (Chapter 18)

Short Answer

1. She sees similarities between the race-based oppression experienced by the two groups. Both have been harassed, killed, and discriminated against by empowered racial groups set on dehumanizing them.

2. Sylvia wonders if she’ll ever feel safe in Little Rock. Rachel and her family look white but don’t have the privileges that usually come with it. If they look white but don’t have acceptance, Sylvia finds it hard to believe that Black people will ever be included without prejudice.

Chapters 19-21

Reading Check

1. In the stacks at the library (Chapter 20)

2. A white boy in a letterman’s jacket named Jim (Chapter 20)

Short Answer

1. Black students might not be allowed to use the restrooms at Central High School. (Chapter 19)

2. “Hollowed out,” exposed, exasperated, degraded, dehumanized (Chapter 19)

3. She worries about her sister’s mental health. She more deeply understands her brother Gary, realizing how the anger he feels boils out of control. She wonders if integration is a cause worth dying for. She and her sister could have died that day, and she realizes integrating might put her life at risk. (Chapter 20)

Chapters 22-24

Reading Check

1. Students are gathering at Miss Daisy Bates’s house for nonviolent resistance training in anticipation of facing racist violence at Central High School. (Chapter 22)

2. National Junior Honor Society, as well as a genuine compliment from Miss Washington (Chapter 23)

3. Half the top 10 songs are by African American entertainers, but only white teens are allowed to appear as dancers on the show. (Chapter 24)

4. Explosives (Chapter 24)

Short Answer

1. Gary wants to teach her how to fight, how to physically defend herself. Her parents want her to learn peaceful, nonviolent resistance. (Chapter 22)

Chapters 25-27

Reading Check

1. Supplies for a lemon cake (Chapter 25)

2. Two explosions go off in the store. (Chapter 25)

3. Calvin Cobb’s mother, Miss Lillie, who runs the flower shop next door to the Zuckers’ store (Chapter 26)

4. Mr. Crandall (Chapter 27)

Short Answer

1. Sylvia is trying to decide whether to attend Central High School if she is selected. The explosion in the Zuckers’ store brings her face-to-face with the kind of terrifying racist violence that she and others may confront during the integration process. (Chapters 25-27)

Chapters 28-30

Reading Check

1. She saw Reggie’s shoes leaving the store too. (Chapter 28)

2. He made the firebombs, which were meant for the Crandalls, but he has bad aim. (Chapter 28)

3. Nine (Chapter 30)

Short Answer

1. She wants to stay safe and loved in her community rather than spend what’s left of her formative years being dehumanized, harassed, and tortured for a cause. (Chapter 30)

2. Parents said no, students changed their minds like Sylvia did, and others may have been rejected by the school board. (Various chapters)

Chapters 31-33

Reading Check

1. The governor of Arkansas (Chapter 31)

2. DJ gets sick, and Mrs. Patterson asks Sylvia to stay home to help care for her. (Chapter 33)

3. They watch as Elizabeth, one of the Little Rock Nine, is blocked from entering the school by soldiers and endures racist abuse as she returns to the bus stop. (Chapter 33)

Chapter 34-Author’s Note

Reading Check

1. To Miss Daisy Bates’s house to see how “the Nine” are doing (Chapter 34)

2. The Nine enter but immediately run out of the school, harassed by a racist mob. (Chapter 34)

3. The US president, Dwight D. Eisenhower (Chapter 34)

Short Answer

1. The Little Rock Nine were criminally harassed, and white students were not prosecuted for their crimes. The governor closed the schools for the 1958-1959 school year, defying President Eisenhower and federal law. Schools opened in 1959 fully integrated. (Author’s Note)