56 pages • 1 hour read
Sara PennypackerPax, Journey Home
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Importance of Community in the Healing Process
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.
In Pax, Journey Home, Sara Pennypacker explores the nature of grief and the grieving process through the human protagonist, Peter. As the novel begins, Peter has lost both parents and is separated from his pet fox, Pax. This makes him hesitant to build new bonds, whether with Vola as a mother figure, with Ben as a friend, or even with a new pet. Peter believes that forming new connections would increase the possibility of loss and pain, so he decides that an isolated life is the best way to avoid it. Peter’s journey throughout the book involves moving from isolation to a new understanding that connection and community are essential to healing from his grief.
When Peter joins the Water Warriors, he meets Samuel, who initially followed the same plan that Peter has decided to follow. He tells Peter that after the death of his brother, “[he’d] been drifting. [He’d] dumped [his] family, burned all [his] friends. [He] kind of stumbled into the military” (96). In the military, Samuel found himself renewed through the connections he built in the community. When the war ended, he met Jade, who convinced him to join the Water Warriors. Peter is stunned that Samuel met Jade after he knew the pain of losing a loved one, but through his example, Samuel shows Peter how to grow, heal, and reconnect with others despite the possibility of pain.
While Samuel’s influence on Peter is subtle, offering a way to move forward through his example, Jade speaks directly to Peter’s problem. She is the one who confronts him about how unhealthy it is to try to live life on his own, in complete isolation. She encourages him to face his grief by revisiting the mill site. She says, “It will be hard. But you won’t be alone. We’ll be here. And doing something so good will go a long way to change your feelings about the place” (152). Jade offers community and support, but when Samuel calls Jade’s kindness her secret weapon, Peter recalls how “lately, whenever anyone had done something kind for him—Vola offering him a home or suggesting his grandfather might move in—he had felt wounded. Or at least felt at risk that a wound might be coming” (103). With Jade’s offer of friendship and connection, Peter is reminded of the potential pain involved but accepts her love and support, trusting her to help him move forward. Even after he returns home without Jade and Samuel, Jade’s confidence in him continues to help him move forward and connect with others.
Peter’s decision not to shoot the little vixen in the woods is a crucial moment when he finally fully embraces connection despite the possibility of pain. From that moment in the novel, Peter actively works to build a community, taking the kit with him when he rejoins the Water Warriors. When he finally returns to his home at Vola’s, he is excited to reconnect with her and Ben, expanding his community again. Through his relationships with Samuel and Jade, Peter learns the power of connection and community in the healing process and understands that the connections he makes are worth the risk of pain.
The Role of Care and Kindness in Recovery
Pax, Journey Home explores how kindness is the key to recovery through the parallel stories of Peter’s grieving process and the healing of the contaminated river. Through these stories of recovery, Pennypacker keeps the story personal while also highlighting the importance of protecting and nurturing the natural world.
Jade is a pivotal character in both recovery processes through her roles as Peter’s friend and a Water Warrior. She tells Peter a story of how she saw a fox family learning to drink water for the first time. She expresses that while she has been an activist for a while, “this is the first time [she] actually felt it, that it became real, what [they]’re doing. Because of that fox family. [She] felt like now those fox kits are [hers]” (72). Peter notices and admires Jade’s connection to nature, which opens up a new world for him:
Peter learned to follow [Jade’s] gaze because it always led to something he wouldn’t want to have missed: an oriole so bright against the dark forest that its feathers seemed flames; a spiderweb jeweled with river mist; pink toadstools that looked like they’d sprouted straight out of a fairy tale (81).
While Peter is deeply engaged in working past his grief, looking at nature from Jade’s perspective pulls his attention off his own problems. The enchantment of nature that he sees through Jade’s eyes forces Peter to recall Pax and the magical relationship they shared. As the trip goes on, Peter starts to open up about loving and losing his pet because of his reestablished connection with nature.
With descriptions like these, the novel also offers a reminder of what the Water Warriors are fighting to preserve. The specificity of the imagery creates a concrete picture of what is being destroyed, increasing the urgency of the novel’s message. The novel also demonstrates the importance of humans’ role in ecological recovery by highlighting some of the techniques the Water Warriors use. Peter learns that “[a]ll along the valleys, where the creeks have been contaminated, they’re setting fire to the invasive weeds that have taken over. Then they’ll reseed with native grasses” (82). Pennypacker offers specific strategies rooted in real-world examples to illustrate, very specifically, the ways in which humans can offset ecological destruction and be a part of the recovery process. With specific imagery and strategies rooted in a deeply personal story, she creates a sense of urgency while offering optimism and hope, demonstrating how humans can be a part of the solution to ecological destruction.
Parental Love and Sacrifice
For humans and animals, love, fear, and sacrifice are universal experiences that come with parenthood. In Pax, Journey Home, the parallels between Pax’s and Peter’s families are highlighted to explore the nature of parental love across species.
When the novel begins, Pax is learning to be a father and dealing with the many changes that come with this new role. The love he feels for his kits is instant and powerful. When his daughter lays on him, “[t]he little fluff of gray on his chest [is] nearly weightless, but he [feels] pinned to the ground as if the boulder beside him had rolled” (24). Throughout the book, Pax must learn to balance the desire to keep his kits safe at any cost with his own needs. When he leaves the little vixen with Peter, Pax makes the ultimate sacrifice. Although it causes him pain, he knows that it is what’s best for her, learning a major lesson about parenthood. Peter recognizes this when he reflects that “Pax would never abandon his own baby unless he was desperate, unless it was for her own welfare” (219). When Pax returns, he and his family mourn the fact that the little vixen can never live with them in the wild, but they also express joy that she lives and lives in a good and loving home. Pax’s ability to set aside his desire to keep his daughter with him to keep her safe shows his growth and new understanding as a parent.
Although Peter is not a parent, his story also deals with the demands and sacrifices of parenthood. At the beginning of the novel, Peter has lost both of his parents and is adjusting to having Vola and his grandfather serving as parental figures. At first, Grandfather is gruff and cold, quick to criticize Peter, Peter’s father, and the Water Warriors. However, as Peter prepares to leave, Grandfather “warn[s] Peter of dangers from his own time in the service, and of mistakes he should avoid, all in a protective way that surprise[s] Peter. […] His grandfather [i]s acting like…well, like a grandfather” (57). Peter begins to wonder if his grandfather loves him more than he initially let on, understanding his gruff manner as protective. His suspicions are confirmed when, upon his return to Vola’s, Peter learns that Grandfather comes to her house every Sunday afternoon with the newspaper, full of pride, showing Vola all the good that Peter and the Water Warriors have been doing.
Sacrifice is explored from a different angle in the novel with the revelation of Peter’s father’s death. Peter learns that his father died trying to help another father, his friend Private Thomas. Private Thomas wrote a letter to Peter explaining that his father was determined to check on the Private’s expectant wife for him, despite the dangers he faced. While Peter’s father didn’t know he would die, he was still willing to take a risk to help another family, understanding how hard it is to be separated. Through each of these stories, the novel examines the different ways that parenthood affects everyone, as well as the sacrifices that it sometimes demands.
Related Titles
By Sara Pennypacker
