50 Years And A Broken Rule

In Barbara Kingsolver's novel, Animal Vegetable, Miracle (2007), her daughter, Camille, contributes to the

chapter with her story, "Happy Returns" about friends and family coming out to celebrate Barbara

Kingsolver's 50th birthday. Camille first recaps the chapter by articulating how birthdays are a "big deal" to

her family . She then gives a brief anecdote about the birthday invitation rule: you could only invite as many

people as the age you where turning, and her mom breaking the rule by inviting 150 people to her 50th

birthday celebration. She concludes with an example of two recipes that can be made in the early spring with

fresh fruit: Asian Vegetable Rolls and Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp. her purpose is to connect with readers by

giving a personal story then establishing authority when challenging the audience to indulge in the recipes.

Vocabulary

• Prodigious- amazing, enormous

• Ubiquitous- everywhere at the same time

Tone 

cheerful, joyful, content

Rhetorical Strategies

• Colloquialism: "Right behind planting came the weeding, mulching, vigilance for bugs and birds worry 

over too much rain or not enough. (pg 102).

• Humor: "Rosemary and sage, blueberry and raspberry, fountain grass, blue sweetgrass, sunshine- 

colored roses, blue-and-white columbines, scarlet poppies, butterfly bush and "sunset"  echinacea- the

color scheme of my garden is "Crayola" (pg 107).

• Diction: "The food, when it came out, was applauded: the summer rolls were saucy, the lamb succulent, 

the frittata puffy and light" (pg 106).

• Description: ""The tree-year-olds were the first ones out on the flagstone dance floor, of course, 

followed closely by my seventy-five-year-old parents, the teenagers and the elders and the middle-aged, 

recklessly dancing across age categories" (pg 106). 

• Concrete Imagery: "with carrots you never know what you've got until you grab them by the green hair 

and tug them up. These turned out to be gorgeous, golden orange, thicker than thumbs, longer than my hand." 

(pg 105).

Discussion Questions

1) Was this really the first time the birthday invitation rule was broken?

2) what other sensory details does Kingsolver use?

3)  Is it "ok" to wish for rain or wish for it not too rain while still being thankful for the whether conditions?

Quotes

"This is what my friends bought... Rosemary and sage, blueberry and raspberry, fountain grass, blue 

sweetgrass, sunshine-colored roses, blue-and-white columbines, scarlet poppies, butterfly bush and "sunset"  

echinacea- the color scheme of my garden is "Crayola" (pg 107).

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

   In Barbara Kingsolver's  novel, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007), she argues that it is important for the  


following generations to learn where their food comes from and how it is made. Kingsolver first gives an anecdote  


about her and her families life in Tucson, Arizona by describing the drought and the water system. She then  


rationalizes a human's oil intake per year, which is 400 gallons, which is right behind vehicular oil use. In conclusion,


she verbalizes other countries' hatred towards American food. Kingsolver's purpose is to educate the audience  


about the food they are eating and why it is harming the society versus other countries who have a better food  


culture. she seems to have Americans in mind that live in places that are practically incapable of growing their own  


food near by because they have to have a lot of food shipped to them which adds to the oil intake.

Vocabulary

• deciduous- shedding leaves annually

• vagrant-homeless wonderer; nomad

• petulant- impatient or irritable

Tone

ironic, informative, candid

Rhetoric Strategies

• Listing: "This was the landscapes whose every face we knew: giant saguaro cacti, coyotes, mountains,  

the wicked sun reflecting off bare gravel" (pg. 1).

• Dialogue: "'Dang' she said, 'it's going to rain.' 'I hope so,' Steven said" (pg. 7).

• Narration: "My Kingsolver ancestors came from that county in Virginia; I'd grown up only a few hours away,

over the Kentucky line" (pg. 3).

• Jargon: "Biology teachers face kids in classrooms who may not even believe in the metamorphosis of  

bud to flower to fruit and seed, but rather some continuum of pansies becoming petunias becoming  

chrysanthemums; that's the only reality they witness as landscapers come to campuses and city parks  

and surreptitiously yank out one flower before it fades from its prime, replacing it with another" (pg. 11).

• Examples: "Most of those calories enter our mouths in form hardly recognizable as corn and soybeans, or

even vegetable in origin: High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) owns up to its parentage, but lecithin, citric  

acid, maltodextrin,sorbitol, and xanthan gum, for example, are also manufactured from corn " (pg. 14)

Discussion Questions

1) The whole family is contributing to the writing in the book?

2) Does Kingsolver favor examples over imagery?

3) Since the food made in America is so harmful, is her novel suppose to shine light on the situation to farmers  

who can make a difference and chance the American food culture?

Memorable Quote

"Drink it we did, then, filled our coffee makers too, and mixed our children's juice concentrate with fluid that would 

gag a guppy" (pg. 4).