King responds warily, unsure of Sandy's kindness, but notices bruises on the boy's arm. At the bayou, Sandy appears, telling King he is sorry for his loss. King's friends react with surprise at his outburst defending Sandy, so after school he runs to the bayou to visit the dragonflies that fly there, thinking that his older brother was reincarnated into a dragonfly. The only reason King stopped being friends with Sandy, in fact, was his older brother Khalid's insistence that others would then think King was gay, too. He hears them bullying Sandy Sanders for being gay, a boy whose father is a known racist and whose brother has been accused of racist acts, too, and King feels obligated to defend Sandy, since they were once very close. At school, King feels isolated from his friends, who do not understand how to respond to his grief. King and the Dragonflies is a middle grade novel divided into 19 chapters but divided into only five sections for the purposes of this guide.Ĭhapters 1 - 4 introduce Kingston "King" James, a young Louisiana native who has recently lost his older brother and is struggling to come to terms with his own and his parents' grief.
As King's friendship with Sandy is reignited, he's forced to confront questions about himself and the reality of his brother's death.The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Callender, Kacen.
"You don't want anyone to think you're gay too, do you?"īut when Sandy goes missing, sparking a town-wide search, and King finds his former best friend hiding in a tent in his backyard, he agrees to help Sandy escape from his abusive father, and the two begin an adventure as they build their own private paradise down by the bayou and among the dragonflies. But just days before he died, Khalid told King to end their friendship, after overhearing a secret about Sandy-that he thinks he might be gay. It would be easier if King could talk with his best friend, Sandy Sanders. Khalid still visits in dreams, and King must keep these secrets to himself as he watches grief transform his family. When Khalid unexpectedly passed away, he shed what was his first skin for another to live down by the bayou in their small Louisiana town. Twelve-year-old Kingston James is sure his brother Khalid has turned into a dragonfly.
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