As Brave As You

As Genie comes of age, he learns to grapple with adult emotions and resolve complex problems. In particular, Genie faces two situations in which his actions accidentally cause lasting and seemingly unfixable harm: Earlier, he left Wood’s fire truck in the middle of the floor where it got stepped on and broken; now, he accidentally poisons Brooke’s bird by feeding it apple seeds instead of flies. Both situations bring Genie extreme guilt. They also force Genie to find solutions. He searches for a matching truck wheel at the flea market, and researches the content of apple seeds to confirm whether they could have poisoned the bird. The bird’s death also serves as a way for Genie to collaborate with Ernie—the brothers work together to find a solution to the problem, as the novel explores the complexities and bonds between adolescent siblings.

The flea market scenes serve several purposes in the narrative. First, they again highlight the differences between Virginia and Brooklyn, underscoring the idea that the boys now exist in a different culture than the one they know. The market evokes the close-knit nature of the rural community where the boys’ grandparents live—their grandmother knows all the vendors in the market, chatting with them after she sells out of her peas. Second, they allow Genie to interact with adults outside his family, observing and scrutinizing characters like Binks, an eccentric who sells teeth that are purportedly from celebrities, and whose self-assuredness and unapologetic weirdness strikes Genie.