Swallowing Stones

Swallowing Stones

By Joyce mcdonald

Presentation by Melanie Andersen

Characters

Joe Sadowski Joe is a friend of Michael's who was with him the day he shot a man. Joe doesn’t have many friends and gets in trouble a lot for drinking.

Michael MacKenzieMichael is a seventeen year old boy who fired his gun into the air and accidentally killed a man. He works as a lifeguard and he is in track

Darcy Darcy is Michael's girlfriend for a majority of the book. She likes going to parties and would always drag him along. She is fairly popular and has many friends.

Jenna Ward Jenna Ward is the daughter of the man who got killed. She was there that day and saw her father die. In the book she faces a lot of grief and it results in complications with her boyfriend, Jason. She is 15 years old.

Amy Ruggerio Amy is a girl whose parents were killed in a car accident. She now lives with her grandpa. Amy and Michael turn into very close friends and then they become closer than friends.

5 Adjectives I Would Use to Describe Swallowing Stones: Suspenseful, Detailed, Thought-provoking, Dark, Unexpected

Setting: The book Swallowing Stones takes place in Briarwood, New Jersey. The time of the book is present day, it was released in 1997, so I would place it in that time period.

An Important Quote: “He understands now that he has been carrying the stone in his throat all this time. He hasn’t swallowed it at all, and he is drowning,” page 240. This quote is significant because it is the point when Michael realizes that he cannot go on any longer by lying and keeping secrets.

Towards the end of the book Michael starts to believe that he should have went to the police right away, and I agree with that. Now that he has lied many times and has drug people into it he has caused much more damage.

When do you think Michael should have reported himself to the police if at all?

Summary In the beginning of Swallowing Stones, Michael and Joe go out to the woods where Michael shoots his grandfather's gun in the air. Unknowingly, this bullet kills an innocent man on his roof, the father of Jenna Ward. When Michael is on his way to take his drivers test he finds out a man has died from a bullet that came from the sky and he immediately knows that he did it. Later on we see both Jenna and her mother grieving. Meanwhile, Michael is trying to cover up his and Joe’s tracks from the police. Jenna faces problems with her boyfriend Jason, but ends up solving them by talking it out. Michael becomes really close with Amy Ruggerio and his girlfriend gets very jealous, causing their breakup. Towards the end of the book, Michael realizes that he can’t keep what he did a secret any longer. Him and Jenna both find themselves at the ghost tree but the book ends before she wakes up.