39 pages • 1 hour read
Kirkpatrick HillThe Year of Miss Agnes
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
In an Alaskan village in 1948, the narrator, Fred (Frederika) and her mother ("Mamma") watch the local pilot, Sam White, take the only schoolteacher away in his plane. Fred worries about what will happen without a teacher, and her mother suggests there won't be any more school. Not having enjoyed her own schooldays, Mamma doesn't mind this, but Fred is upset. They watch as the teacher asks Sam to take her back to town, then runs to get her belongings from her cabin.
Fred thinks about the teacher telling Sam why she left. The teacher hated the smell of fish, which is a big part of the students' lives. It made her mad when students smelled of fish, even though it was what they always ate for lunch. Some also help their families with fishing and packing fish. When the teacher confronts a student named Plasker about this smell, her eyes water, and the students know the teacher will not be staying. They have had many teachers since the school opened; Fred reflects that the mean-looking ones stay longer, while "the ones who smiled all the time" (4) leave quickly.
On October 1, Sam tells Fred that he's brought a new teacher to their village. He tells her, "You kids are not going to get away with nothin'" (5), so Fred seeks the new teacher out.
Chapter 2 Summary
Before finding the new teacher, Fred goes to get her friend Bertha. Bertha also wonders if the teacher is nice or strict, and the two girls go to the teacher's cabin. They're shocked to see her in pants, beating a rug on her porch. It is unusual for women to wear pants in their village; they are also impressed by her strength. When she sees them, the teacher, Miss Agnes, assumes they will help and puts them to work doing chores with her. Then, she makes them all tea. The girls are unused to taking tea with milk, but Miss Agnes encourages them to; Fred does, Bertha does not.
Commenting on Miss Agnes's accent, Fred learns that Miss Agnes is English. However, this confuses her because Fred speaks English. Miss Agnes takes down an atlas and shows the girls Alaska and England, and she explains that the English spoken there sounds different but is still the same language. It is only then that she asks the girls' names. Fred explains that Bertha’s parents adopted her, and her "real mother" (10) lives in Allakaket. Miss Agnes knows her mother, since she used to teach in Allakaket. Miss Agnes is surprised by Fred's name, since it is traditionally a boy's name, and Fred explains that it is short for "Frederika," because Dubin, the owner of a store where her father worked as a boy, asked him to name a daughter that. Miss Agnes says she never met Dubin but has heard a lot about him.
Fred goes to Old Man Andreson's store. She asks him if he knows of the teacher, and he does. He tells her that she's "a good one" (12) and they liked her in Allakaket. A local boy, George, says that he used to have her as a teacher and that she was excellent.
Chapter 3 Summary
Fred's village got a school relatively recently. Previously, the villagers had lived upriver at Dolbi, but it flooded so often that they moved to higher ground. Others joined them because the area was rich with game. The village got large enough that the government let them have a school, which they hold in an empty cabin.
On her first day of school with Miss Agnes, Fred looks out the window and sees there is smoke coming from the schoolhouse's chimney. Their previous teacher had a hard time getting fires going, but Miss Agnes doesn't. Fred is delighted to be going to school, though her mother is annoyed; it takes Fred away when she could be helping. Fred's sister, Bokko, helps her get ready. She gives Fred a pair of socks without holes when their mother isn’t looking. Fred is sorry that Bokko can't go to school with her because she's deaf, especially because Fred is the only one who can understand what she says.
Fred runs to school. Miss Agnes has put up a huge world map over one wall, which fascinates Fred. She shows the other kids what she learned about Alaska and England. Miss Agnes has also set up a record player, books, and abstract pictures. Fred loves these: "They weren't pictures of real things, but they were just lines and square and shapes of bright, bright colors all put together, not looking like anything, but really happy somehow" (17). Finally, the desks are in a circle, rather than in rows. Fred is happy about the changes.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The inciting incident—the previous teacher leaving—sets up tension between the village and the outside world. The difficulty the teacher had with the fish smell symbolizes this tension, illustrating her inability to cope with aspects of the village that are different from what she’s known. The “distance” between the world she’s familiar with and the villages is further emphasized by the use of Sam’s plane to get in and out of the village, depicting how remote the location is.
Despite the disappointment of losing a teacher, Fred maintains hope that a new, better teacher will arrive. In the first chapter, Fred’s gender is unclear, allowing Hill to establish the character while foregoing traditional gender stereotypes about young girls. Instead, Fred’s characterization centers around her identity as a young person hungry for knowledge. Her diction, which is simple yet vivid, emphasizes both her youth and enthusiasm. By contrast, her mother does not care whether a new teacher comes; this differentiates the characters, showing their fundamentally different attitudes towards the outside world.
From the time Miss Agnes first arrives, she appears as a capable and wise teacher. Those who have met her (Sam, villagers in the general store) see her as strict but fair. Furthermore, she has the ability to understand the culture she inhabits. When Miss Agnes succeeds in lighting the schoolhouse fire without the help of her students, it illustrates her ability to cope in this environment. The theme of important teachers begins to develop in this section, as the reader learns Fred’s gender through her dialogue with Miss Agnes in Chapter 2. Miss Agnes, with her trousers, her strength, and her creativity, creates a novel role model for the young girls she teaches.
