39 pages • 1 hour read
The Year of Miss Agnes
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Chapters 4-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Many children are present for Miss Agnes's first day, since it isn't time for winter camp, when they trap animals with their parents. In addition to Bertha and Fred, Jimmy Sam, Roger, Little Pete, Selina, Charlie-Boy, Kenny, Plasker, Toby Joe, and Marie are there, too. Fred is happy that she can stay in town during the winter because it means she can go to school.
Bokko and Fred are some of the only children who stay home in winter, as their father died of tuberculosis in a Juneau hospital when they were young. Fred often looks at the picture her family has of him and admires his eyes, which look like Bokko's. He was a cheerful man, but their mother is not. She works cleaning the general store, she sews items for others, she bakes and cooks. To sew items to sell, she has to do a lot of work to prepare and dry the skins, which she then uses for items like mittens and boots. Bokko and Fred help her with these tasks.
Some of the items are different Mama creates have modern adaptations; for example, Mamma embroiders beads on the boots, while Grandma explains that they used to use porcupine quills. This is common: "There's a lot of stuff they don't make anymore that my grandma tells me about," (22) Fred explains. They order their parkas from a catalogue, for example, which their grandmother disapproves of. Grandma showed Bokko and Fred how to sew and knit, because their mother gets annoyed with them.
Mamma is Grandma and Grandpa's only child. They have retired from camping and stay in town during the winter as well, because Mamma and Grandpa couldn't do all the trapping alone. Instead, they go to "fish camp" (24) in the spring with their extended family, and they take turns helping. Meanwhile, instead of trapping, Grandpa makes snowshoes out of birch wood and rawhide strips.
Chapter 5 Summary
At school, Miss Agnes brings the room to order. Although Little Pete and Roger start wrestling, she stops them with a look. Then, Miss Agnes has the students get out their old books and put them away in storage boxes. She includes the grade book, explaining, "I don't believe in grades" (27). She opens new supplies, with colored pencils, crayons, and paints, and tells them to make pictures for the walls. The children are excited and learn new words for colors, like periwinkle. They find the "flesh crayon" funny because it doesn't look like their skin at all.
As they draw and paint, Miss Agnes puts on opera music. Fred tells Miss Agnes she has heard this music at Dominic Carlotti's store in Koyukuk. Miss Agnes knows him, and she says that he likes it because it is popular in Italy, where comes from. She shows Fred Italy on the map.
The children finish their pictures and put them up. They have drawn things from their lives and their village. Fred draws Miss Agnes.
At lunch, Fred and the other children worry that Miss Agnes will find their fish repulsive. Fred asks Miss Agnes if she likes fish and is upset that she doesn't, but Miss Agnes explains that because of sinus problems, she can't smell them, which is a relief to the children.
Chapter 6 Summary
In the afternoon, Miss Agnes wants to know how well the children write. The children turn to Bertha, who is the only one already good at writing. Miss Agnes compliments Bertha, then teaches her how to write in cursive. Marie is upset that she can't write much, while Charlie-Boy and Selina can only write their names. Miss Agnes puts a strip of tape with the alphabet written on it on the desks. She then works at the board to show what the letters should look like. The children are surprised that she is so exacting, but Fred appreciates it. She wants to get better.
As they work on writing, Miss Agnes reads to them from Robin Hood. She uses different voices for the characters, and Fred and the other children love it. When she finishes reading, Miss Agnes draws Robin Hood for them.
Chapter 7 Summary
The students learn geography with the wall map and a smaller map of Alaska. The students are excited to see the places they know: the Koyukuk River, the Yukon, Dolbi, Fairbanks, and Anchorage. Fred asks where Juneau is and thinks about her father dying in the hospital there. Miss Agnes tells them they will learn about every country.
After geography, the students study math. Miss Agnes has prepared different worksheets for the students. The younger students just have numbers, while Fred's has addition and subtraction, and the older kids have more complex things. Fred hates arithmetic and thinks that nothing will change this.
As the students work on their math problems, Miss Agnes tells the story of Sam Dubin, who asked Fred's father to name her after his mother. He came from Yugoslavia to Allakaket and made a lot of money by selling to local miners. Because he couldn't read or do math, people took advantage of him, and he had to go back to Yugoslavia. Miss Agnes presents this as a warning, explaining that the students need math, so they won't be cheated. This inspires Fred to study.
At the end of the day, Fred doesn't want to go home. Little Pete goes to get his father, Big Pete, to show him the Alaska map. Big Pete finds this really exciting, though he thinks there is an error on the map. Fred thinks how funny it is that Big Pete is so small. He got his name because when his son was born, he was named "Pete" as well, so they called him "Little Pete"—but he has turned out to be very tall.
Fred stays to help Miss Agnes clean up. She asks why Miss Agnes left Allakaket. Miss Agnes explains that she'd wanted to go home to England after being away so long, and especially after not being able to go back during "the war" (47), or World War II. Her mother used to write to her. Fred wonders why Miss Agnes didn't go back after leaving Allakaket, and Miss Agnes explains that the superintendent of the schools stopped her as she was leaving, asking her to take this job for just a year. Fred asks if her mother was sad, and Miss Agnes explains that her mother died two years earlier.
Chapter 8 Summary
Fred forgets her lunch the next day, so Bokko brings it to school. Miss Agnes is shocked that Bokko doesn't attend school, and Fred explains that she is deaf and that their mother didn't want to send Bokko away to a school for the deaf. Miss Agnes says she will speak to their mother and convinces Bokko to stay. Miss Agnes is further surprised that Fred doesn't know if Bokko has another name, or even how to spell it. Miss Agnes writes Bokko's name for her and starts to teach her.
Miss Agnes talks with Mamma, and Bokko starts coming to school. This leads to a fight between Mamma and Grandpa, who wants Bokko to get an education. Grandpa explains to Fred that her mother has had a hard life.
Miss Agnes orders books on sign language for Bokko, which Sam White brings in. The students are all excited to learn about lip-reading and Braille. Fred reflects that these are hard but that you have to try anyway. Miss Agnes starts teaching Bokko sign language, and the other students watch and start learning, too. Charlie-Boy is especially good at it because he's good at many physical things. Bokko and the other children start to communicate. Bokko makes up names for everyone in the village. After a while, Bokko tells Mamma that she is pretty in sign language, and Fred translates. Mamma sends a loaf of bread to school for Miss Agnes, which Fred sees as a symbol that she's not angry about Bokko going to school anymore.
Chapters 4-8 Analysis
The rising action of this section centers around Miss Agnes’s schoolhouse innovations. By creatively approaching her job, she finds a pathway to connect to her students in ways that appeal to them. Her approach surprises and delights the students, who aren’t accustomed to teachers reaching them. When Miss Agnes explains that she doesn’t like fish, yet the smell doesn’t bother her, this symbolizes her ability to bridge the world of the village with the “outside” world: though she was born far away, she nevertheless possesses the ability to reach students of a different culture. Fred’s tone shows how successful Miss Agnes has been, as she approaches lessons with excitement and curiosity.
Miss Agnes’s ability to reach the villagers starts to emerge. She convinces Mamma to allow Bokko to attend school, expanding her influence outside the school. Meanwhile, Big Pete comes to the schoolhouse to view the map of Alaska. These events develop a major theme: learning is for everyone, as well as a life-long process. The pleasure that Bokko and Big Pete get from their learning experiences illustrate Miss Agnes’s success.
Hill interweaves backstory into this section, particularly regarding Fred’s family, the culture of the village, and local history. This choice creates rounder characters; even those who initially seem unpleasant, such as Mamma, become more empathetic once the reader has understood what they have been through. This is especially true for Miss Agnes, whose calling as a teacher in Alaska led her to miss seeing her mother before she died. She is not just a wonderful teacher, but also a well-rounded person with her own history who has sacrificed for her calling. By referencing England and World War II, Hill further succeeds in illustrating the remoteness of the village, while emphasizing how Miss Agnes’s abilities help minimize the disadvantages of being far away from major world events.
As the tension between the village and the outside world lessens through Miss Agnes’s skillful navigation of lessons, the main plot obstacle emerges: she will only be able to stay for one year. This time restriction introduces a new source of tension, challenging Fred to learn as much as she can in a short time period.
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