While the family sings happy birthday, the phone rings and Leonie answers. Pop’s story is interrupted when Leonie returns with a birthday cake for Jojo. Richie had been caught stealing food to feed his nine siblings. One of the boys in the camp, Richie, was only twelve years old.

Once, Stag was beaten by a white man, and later a group of white men tied up Pop and Stag and took them to a work camp called Parchman. When they were young, Stag would always get into trouble. Jojo hid in the barn with the animals and stepped on a jagged can, which caused a fight between Pop and Leonie about whether Jojo was old enough to be left alone.īack in the present, Pop tells Jojo that he and Stag have the same dad but different mothers. Leonie left Jojo alone, and while she was gone Pop’s brother, Stag-who is “sick in the head”-walked past outside. Jojo explains that nowadays he calls his mother by her first name, Leonie, rather than “Mama.” He recalls a time just after Mam was diagnosed with cancer, when his grandparents left him alone with Leonie. After they kill the goat, Pop sends Jojo back inside, saying he heard Jojo’s three-year-old sister, Kayla, crying. Jojo’s father, Michael, has many tattoos, some of which he got in prison. Jojo’s other grandfather, Big Joseph, is white, and Jojo has only met him a couple of times. Jojo and his grandfather, Pop, slaughter a goat for the family to eat. Jojo’s grandmother, Mam, is undergoing chemotherapy (a treatment for cancer), so she sleeps a lot. The first chapter is told from the perspective of Jojo on his thirteenth birthday.

Sing unburied sing book