49 pages • 1 hour read
Neela Vaswani, Silas HouseSame Sun Here
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
November 2008 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
4 November 2008
On Election Day, River goes with Mawmaw to the voting booth and sees long lines of people standing in the rain, waiting to cast their vote. Someone insults Mawmaw, calling her a “tree hugger” (103), and River isn’t sure how to defend her. However, Mawmaw explains to him the importance of standing up for what he believes in, and that one person can make a difference. She tells him to never respond in violence, but to find other ways to voice an opinion. As the mountaintop removal worsens, River notices that the once clear creek waters are now filled with “orange gunk” (107) because of the coal company. Mawmaw works with an activist organization to fight against the mountaintop removal, and she warns River that she may be arrested for civil disobedience in the fight to save their mountains. Amidst all these troubles, River turns to basketball as a way to let out frustration and release his worries.
River’s mother’s headaches worsen, and he misses the mother he knew before she got sick. She used to laugh and dance, but her sickness and his father’s absence have changed the family he once had. Finally, he tells Meena that the story of her shaving her legs freaked him out, and he doesn’t want her to write about girl stuff anymore.
November 21, 2008 Summary
When Meena gets home one day, furniture and items from the apartment storage units are sitting on the sidewalk, including Kiku’s bike, with a sign saying, “Please take” (114). She saves his bike and finds out from Mrs. Lau that the landlord put everything out without even notifying tenants. Once again, the landlord is trying to get rent-controlled tenants to leave the building.
Meena and her family are living in their apartment illegally. The apartment actually belongs to Mrs. Lau’s son, who lives in Brooklyn. Her family rents the apartment from Mrs. Lau for the rent-controlled price. Every three months, when the building is inspected, Meena’s family has to remove any evidence that they live there and put up photos of Mrs. Lau’s son. Meena is afraid of being caught and doesn’t like lying, but there’s no other option. Her family cannot afford any other apartment. Meena has had to lie to the building manager before to protect her family, and she worries he could kick them out at any time.
Meena is upset about the way River reacted to her story about shaving her legs. She feels like boys talk about their bodies and its considered normal, but when girls talk about their bodies, people think it’s weird. She also worries about Dadi, since she didn’t get a letter from her this week. In response to River’s news about Mawmaw’s role fighting against mountaintop removal, she teaches him a Hindi word that means nonviolence: ahimsa. Gandhi used ahimsa to fight the British, and even though he was arrested several times, his arrests brought about the change that he was fighting for.
Similar to River, Meena saw people lining up to vote on Election Day. That night, she watched the election results with her family, and when Obama won, she could hear people celebrating in the streets. Her mother became emotional when Obama mentioned Hindus in his speech, and she tells Meena and Kiku that she is thankful to live in America.
Meena goes with her mum and Kiku to the free citizenship class at the library. Since she is young, she won’t have to take the citizenship test, but she wants to study and learn the information and help her parents learn, too. At the class, she hears that to be an American citizen, she will have to give up her allegiance to India. She has mixed feelings about this, and doesn’t know why she can’t be “loyal to India and America at the same time” (128).
November 2008 Analysis
Meena and River both witness people voting on Election Day. Seeing people stand in line in the rain to vote makes River see that voting is a privilege and makes him excited to be old enough to vote someday. Meena sees all kinds of different people standing in line to cast their vote, such as a waitress, a police officer, and a woman wearing bright pink rollerblades. In Kentucky, Mawmaw’s decision to vote for Obama is not shared by much of the community, and a man at the voting booth jeers at her. In contrast, Meena hears the people in her neighborhood celebrating when Obama is announced the winner on TV. By highlighting the election process in Meena’s state and River’s state, House and Vaswani show young readers the significance of voting and the election process. They also show that just because states have opposing political views, that doesn’t mean that all the people in those states think the same way, or that residents in those states can’t be friends.
House and Vaswani bring up questions about whether it’s ok to lie or break the law when laws are unjust. For example, Meena’s family lives in their apartment illegally. They cannot afford a regularly priced apartment, and they pay Mrs. Lau the rent-controlled price for her son’s apartment. House and Vaswani use the Joshi’s living situation to show the difficulties immigrants face in America. Although they do not want to lie or break the law, they feel they have no other option. In addition, Mawmaw tells River she may have to be arrested in the fight against the coal company. Meena compares Mawmaw to Gandhi, who also was arrested, but brought about India’s freedom from the British. Through these examples, House and Vaswani show that governments and laws are not always just. Sometimes doing the right thing requires one to stand up against those in power and against discriminatory laws.
Just as Meena and River understand one another better as they learn about each other, Meena realizes the same is true for her relationships at school. She looks up to Marvel Jenkins for her confidence and self-assured nature, but begins to notice that she takes off her shoes or sits down whenever she talks to boys. Meena realizes that Marvel is self-conscious about being tall, just like Meena feels self-conscious about being short. Her observation shows that people are all the same—we all have insecurities. Now that she understands Marvel, she realizes they are similar, and doesn’t feel intimidated by her. This principle applies to River’s relationship with the Patels as well. At first, he didn’t talk to them and thought their accents sounded strange. However, now that he’s friends with Meena and understands more about Indian culture, he’s comfortable talking with the Patels, and becomes friends with Chandra. Through these examples, House and Vaswani show that despite differences such as culture and appearance, people are fundamentally the same on the inside. The more one learns about another person, the more one recognizes similarities rather than differences.
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