Sing Unburied Sing Sparknotes

In the novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, Jojo and Kayla often fail to be cared for by their parents, Leonie and Michael, due to their drug addictions. At home, the true nurturers of Jojo and Kayla are Pop and Jojo, himself. Throughout the novel, caregivers provide food, assist the sick, and hide information which contributes to effective nurturing.

Feeding or giving food is an effective way of caretaking. After Misty Leonie, Jojo, and Kayla visit the drug dealer's home stocked with goods, Jojo reveals that he stole food: “I open my stolen bottle and drink the juice down, then pour half the other bottle into Kayla's sippy cup. I hand one cracker to Kayla and slide one into my mouth” (89). Inside the dealer's home, Jojo and Kayla witnessed

When Michael is looking after Leonie as she’s suffering the consequences of swallowing a bag of drugs, Jojo makes an effort to prevent Kayla from noticing all the chaos happening around them by singing nursery rhymes: “Don’t want her to see Leonie hunched over and sick, don’t want her to see Michael…like he’s going to cry, don’t want her to see Misty running from the station to where they are…with cups of water and her voice high-pitched and her face red” (178). Jojo distracts Kayla because he knows she will feel sick again if she grasped the situation around them. Kayla’s sickness occurs when she isn’t being cared for. That being said, she feels fine while Jojo is singing to her. This means that Jojo’s attempt at hiding reality is effective because it shows Kayla is being cared for. As Jojo and Kayla are about to leave Parchman after picking up Michael, Pop’s dead friend, Richie, suddenly appears and sits in the car with them. He is determined to find out how he died because Pop’s story was “a moth-eaten shirt, nibbled to threads: the shape is right, but the details have been erased” (137). Again and again, Jojo refuses to give Richie what he wants until he finally gives in and asks Pop for a truthful ending to Richie’s story. When the story is completed, Jojo looks over at Richie: “At first I think he is singing again, but then I realize it is a whine that rises to a yell that rises to a scream, and the look on his face is horror at what he sees” (256). Pop was attempting to protect Richie by suppressing the truth because he believed Richie would react badly if he found out how he died. And, Pop’s decision to avoid the truth was understandable considering Richie screamed in horror and ran away after he heard the veracity. Richie was not ready to handle the