Where The Crawdads Sing By Delia Owens

Imagine living a solid and tranquil life with a full family, but, one day, each person in your family leaves the home to never return. For some people, this is real life and, for Kya, this is nowhere near imagination. In the coming of age novel, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Kya is left to fend for herself as her entire family leaves her alone with her abusive father. When the body of a local kid is found dead, she is thought to be the main suspect. Throughout the story, Kya learns to reinvent herself and her ways of living, both from observing her families’ strategies of survival and from what nature teaches her. Kya was not always alone, she grew up with the rest of her family for the majority of her life. Throughout this time, she has watched and

‘Who’s gonna cook?’ she asked out loud. She lit a candle and poked at the hot ashes in the woodstove, adding kindling. Pump the bellows till a flame is caught, then more wood. Getting out leftovers, she said, ‘I’ll tump the grits in lard, warm ‘em up,’ which she did and ate from the pot, looking through the window for Pa. But he didn’t come to see it. (Owens 14) From watching her mother throughout her life, she has taken with her some memory of how to cook simple things, such as grits or turnip greens. As she is now left alone, she has to change her ways of life, such as providing for herself and observing her family in years prior has helped her do that. Even though she was slightly lost when she first realized she was alone and had no one to cook food for her, she still found a way to make her own food with no one to tell her what to do. Kya did certainly learn a lot from observing her family members, but as she was left to entertain herself in the marsh for many hours every day, nature had just as big a toll on her. “Most of what she knew, she’d learned from the