“Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird”
AUTHOR DATE GENRE NATIONALITY
Bambara, Toni Cade 1971 Short Story United States African American Points of View 7 You’re Invading My Space! 9 Dealing with Differences 11 Person to Person Literature
LITERARY THEMES GRADE/THEME
SUBJECT
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Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird _______________________________________________________________________
Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird
Toni Cade Bambara The puddle had frozen over, and me and Cathy went stompin in it. The twins from next door, Tyrone and Terry, were swingin so high out of sight we forgot we were waitin our turn on the tire. Cathy jumped up and came down hard on her heels and started tapdancin. And the frozen patch splinterin every which way underneath kinda spooky. “Looks like a plastic spider web,” she said. “A sort of weird spider, I guess, with many mental problems.” But really it looked like the crystal paperweight Granny kept in the parlor. She was on the back porch, Granny was, making the cakes drunk. The old ladle drippin rum into the Christmas tins, like it used to drip maple syrup into the pails when we lived in the Judson’s woods, like it poured cider into the vats when we were on the Cooper place, like it used to scoop buttermilk and soft cheese when we lived at the dairy. “Go tell that man we ain’t a bunch of trees.” “Ma’am?” “I said to tell that man to get away from here with that camera.” Me and Cathy look over toward the meadow where the men with the station wagon’d been roamin around all mornin. The tall man with a huge camera lassoed to his shoulder was buzzin our way. “They’re makin movie pictures,” yelled Tyrone, stiffenin his legs and twistin so the tire’d come down slow so they could see. “They’re makin movie pictures,” sang out