68 pages • 2 hours read
Patricia Reilly GiffPictures Of Hollis Woods
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
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Important Quotes
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BetaChapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Time with Josie”
One Monday, Hollis is sketching when Josie announces that Mondays are when Beatrice comes for dinner, and she soon arrives with generous portions of Chinese takeout. Beatrice sees one of Hollis’s drawings on the table and is so impressed she asks Hollis to bring out others. Beatrice doesn’t eat anything until she’s looked through every drawing, and then she says, “Imagine. I never saw anyone who was able to do this, […] and I was an art teacher for forty years” (43). Josie agrees.
After dinner, Beatrice shows Hollis some drawing techniques. Hollis asks her to improve her own drawings, but Beatrice refuses, saying that art reflects a person’s true perspective and that sometimes drawings contain truths even the artist does not consciously know. Hollis remembers the Old Man telling her something similar. Beatrice goes further, noting that “You, the artist, can’t hide from the world, because you’re putting yourself down there too” (45) and pointing out that Hollis clearly loves Josie based on one drawing. This prompts Beatrice to wonder if she should take a long-planned painting trip to New Mexico at last because she can leave Josie safely in Hollis’s hands. The chapter ends with Beatrice emphasizing how great Hollis’s gift is and how lucky she is; Hollis feels overwhelmed by the compliment.
Fifth Picture Summary: “The Old Man”
While Hollis draws many sketches of the Old Man on the porch, he comes out and compliments her talent and the personality in her drawings. Finally, Hollis “looked up at him, really looked at him, not a quick glance that darted away so he couldn’t see my eyes” (48). She tells him that she’s named after Holliswood, the place in Queens where someone found her completely alone as a brand-new baby with a note nearby reading “CALL HER HOLLIS WOODS” (48). Silently, Hollis remembers trying to find that place on her own one winter, though she was never able to. She tells the Old Man that everyone thinks she’s a problem child, and then observes that Steven isn’t. The Old Man registers surprise, but just then, Steven hits the shore with a rowboat, and the father scolds his son. The scene ends with the Old Man and Hollis joining Steven in the boat to look for the kingfisher.
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Time with Josie”
Hollis is staying home from school after watching movies all night with Josie. Josie sings “Over the river and through the woods…” (50) and works on carving Hollis’s statue. The mustard woman pulls up unexpectedly in her car outside, and Hollis doesn’t want to get in trouble for skipping school. She suggests to Josie that they sneak out the back door and walk to the ocean, which they do, forgetting to bring coats. At the pier, Hollis wonders what to do about the mustard woman. Josie reaches into the water and pulls up some sea grass that she plans to use for Hollis’s hair in the statue. Just then, the mustard woman arrives on the pier in her car. She asks Hollis why she’s not at school, and Josie expresses confusion but then agrees she should go. Hollis reluctantly gets into the mustard woman’s car, thinking to herself that if she doesn’t want to leave this home, she’s going to have to stop skipping school so often.
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Time with Josie”
Josie has almost finished Hollis’s statue, and Hollis is cooking a special meal to celebrate Beatrice’s upcoming departure for New Mexico. In her heart, Hollis is worried that there might be consequences from the mustard woman, and she has been behaving at school to prevent them. She realizes internally that she wants to stay because Josie needs her. Beatrice arrives, “her hair […] done up in a high pink swirl at the hairdresser” (57), and they enjoy their dinner. As they eat, Beatrice privately tells Hollis to take care of Josie, and she briefly worries that she shouldn’t go. Hollis convinces her she should take her dream trip. Beatrice writes down the phone number where she’ll be staying in New Mexico, and Hollis, feeling apprehensive and wanting to do everything right, memorizes it.
Chapter 4-Chapter 6 Analysis
Hollis feels truly seen by adults for the first time in two parallel scenes. When Beatrice insists on looking through all of Hollis’s drawings, she introduces one of the book’s most important themes: that art will show you truths you may not yet be aware of. She compliments Hollis more genuinely on her talent than anyone has before. The other scene is with the Old Man, whom Hollis spontaneously decides to tell how she was found as a baby. Though both have a deeply positive impact on Hollis’s sense of self, the differences between the scenes indicate that, while Josie and Beatrice understand Hollis as artists, the Old Man understands her as a father. Hollis slides her eyes away from Beatrice when she receives her compliments but makes a point of looking directly at the Old Man to tell him about Holliswood. The older women are important to her, but the Regans are the only ones with potential to be her true family. Beatrice’s extravagant pink hair and her decision to leave her ailing cousin alone with an 11-year-old girl exemplify this fact.
Chapters 5 and 6 introduce the novel’s next big conflict—Hollis feels responsible for Josie and doesn’t want to leave her, but the mustard woman is starting to figure out things aren’t quite right. That decision requires Hollis to grow further into being responsible; though she has been taking care of Josie, Hollis also occasionally takes advantage of her dementia to get away with things, like skipping school and sneaking away from the mustard woman. The combination of Beatrice asking Hollis to watch over Josie and Hollis’s worry about the mustard woman motivate her to stop skipping school and set up the conditions for her decision to protect Josie and herself by running away to the Branches house in the next part of the book.
