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96 pages 3 hours read

Sharon G. Flake

Money Hungry

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2001

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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

It’s Valentine’s Day, and 13-year-old Raspberry Hill is angry at her mother, Momma, with whom she is normally close. Momma is dating again. She’s not dating just anyone, but Raspberry’s friend Zora’s father, Dr. Mitchell. Raspberry’s parents are divorced, so what makes Raspberry most angry about the situation is that Momma isn’t being “straight up” with her about it.

In addition to the conflict with Momma, Raspberry introduces her obsession with money. She states that people often assume she would do anything to get money even if it was by illegal means. She makes it clear that she would do anything legal to get money but that this doesn’t stop those around her from thinking that this obsession with money will one day get her into trouble. Raspberry’s goal to accumulate wealth stems from living in the projects with her mother and watching those around her struggle financially.

Momma has tried to make a nice Valentine’s Day breakfast for her before school, offering her a homemade card and a spread of pancakes and bacon. Raspberry reveals that she also made a card for Momma but ripped it up when she saw Momma kissing Dr. Mitchell the previous evening. Raspberry ignores Momma’s efforts and states that she needs to get to school to make some money, a comment that increases the tension between them.

Chapter 2 Summary

Raspberry and Momma get ready to drive Raspberry to school. In the hallway of their apartment building, Raspberry instinctively pinches her nose because two of the younger tenants, Shoe and Check, urinate in the hallway. This is a frequent occurrence: In the summer the boys claim they do it to kill ants, and in the winter it’s because of roaches. Raspberry knows that Momma, the head of the tenant cleanup committee, will have them scrub the hallway. Momma is interested in keeping the neighborhood kids in line. She reprimands Shoe in the driveway of the apartment building and calls out to another boy, Maleek, on the way to school for kissing his girlfriend on the sidewalk. Raspberry is embarrassed that her mother is always “minding other folks’ business” and calling attention to them (7).

The ride to school is usually a time when Raspberry and Momma connect and talk because Momma works nights. Today, Raspberry ignores Momma. Momma thinks that Raspberry’s cold behavior is because of teenage hormones but stops short when Raspberry asks her what is going on with Dr. Mitchell. Momma refuses to respond other than saying that both she and Dr. Mitchell are adults and can do as they please.

Raspberry finds Momma’s insistence on using proper English grammar grating. Momma has been in college for the past year and has been trying to correct her (and Raspberry’s) grammar. Intending to hurt her mother, Raspberry asks why Dr. Mitchell, a doctor, would want to date someone who lives in the projects with “gangbangers and junkies” as she exits the car (8).

Chapter 3 Summary

Raspberry arrives early at school. Without saying goodbye to Momma, Raspberry greets her friend Zora outside. Zora is selling chocolate for Raspberry for 15% of the profits, but something has gone wrong. Zora sells for Raspberry to afford a pair of $120 sneakers, which her father (Dr. Mitchell) says she needs to pay half of. Zora’s life changed when her parents got divorced and her father moved her out of her private school to the magnet school that Raspberry goes to.

Before Zora can explain what’s happened, another student, Seneca Mason, shoves a half-eaten chocolate candy at Raspberry and demands her money back. Zora argues that there are no refunds and Seneca has already eaten half the chocolate, and Seneca responds by digging out the chewed-up candy bar from her mouth with her finger and offering it to the girls. Raspberry concedes and gives Seneca her money back. This interaction with Seneca is a bad omen, however, as soon more students line up to ask for their money back. Raspberry’s cash is soon wiped out.

The action reaches its climax when one student, Zenna, holds her stomach claiming she doesn’t feel well and then proceeds to vomit all over the floor. This alerts Mr. Jackson, the principal, and he intercepts one of the chocolate hearts Raspberry has been selling. Raspberry describes how she’s been keeping the chocolate in her friend Ja’nae’s freezer since she bought it the previous year. As Mr. Jackson unwraps the chocolate, Raspberry sees that it is covered in white patches that indicates the candy has spoiled.

Mr. Jackson asks Raspberry if her mother knows she’s selling the candy. Raspberry admits that while her mother knew she was selling something, Raspberry didn’t exactly give her all of the details. Mr. Jackson escorts Raspberry down the hall toward his office to call Momma.

Chapter 4 Summary

It turns out that Zenna is sick because of the flu and not Raspberry’s candy, but this doesn’t stop rumors from forming at school that Raspberry was selling poisoned candy. Mr. Jackson forbids Raspberry from selling again. Undeterred, Raspberry begins selling Valentine’s-themed pencils at school at a discounted rate now that the holiday is passed. She tries to entice one boy, Eric, into buying a pencil for Zora, who sits staring at her reflection in a hand mirror. Raspberry compares herself to Zora and reveals the meaning behind her name: Her mother named her after the fruit because of her “red hair, red eyebrows, and enough freckles on my face that you can play connect the dots” (16-17).

Some of Raspberry’s peers ask her what she does with the money and crack jokes about her making enough money to buy a house with her profits. One peer, Sato, makes a cutting allusion to Raspberry’s experience of homelessness by suggesting that the projects must seem like the White House to Raspberry and Momma compared to when they lived “out of a cardboard box” (18). Raspberry brushes off the comment but is reminded of the summer she and her mother did have to live in an old van perched on cement blocks in the local junkyard.

Raspberry explains the real root of her obsession with money. Before her father became addicted to dope, Raspberry and her parents lived in a rented home in a decent neighborhood. Her father’s addiction caused him to become unrecognizable. He began stealing and selling their personal belongings for more drug money and acting violently towards her mother.

After Momma ended up in the hospital for the third time, Raspberry and Momma left and lived with various friends and relatives and in motel rooms until their welcome and money ran out. The only place Momma and Raspberry did not live was a women’s shelter because of an undisclosed incident that happened to Momma when she lived in a shelter during her childhood. Out of options, Momma and Raspberry turned to live on the streets, although Raspberry never missed a day of school in the entire period of their homelessness.

Momma has remained optimistic and a dreamer, while Raspberry has developed her obsession with money. Raspberry reveals that through her selling and spending she has accrued $600 that she keeps stashed throughout her room because access to money means stability.

Chapters 1-4 Analysis

These first chapters introduce several emerging themes, including the traumatic and lasting effects of financial insecurity and homelessness. Raspberry Hill has endured multiple traumas in her 13 years of life that continue to affect her in the present. As her father’s dope addiction causes her family to unravel, Raspberry and her mother flee his increasingly violent and dangerous behavior.

Raspberry and Momma experience homelessness as a result and find themselves living in a series of precarious situations, including on the street.

Momma and Raspberry react to their circumstances differently. While Momma clings to optimistic dreams and visions of a brighter future, Raspberry becomes increasingly attached to the security and stability she believes money can buy.

Raspberry states: “’Cause if you got money, people can’t take stuff from you—not your house, or your ride, not your family. They can’t do nothing much to you, if you got a bankroll backing you up” (21). Raspberry’s life has been shaped by financial hardship. As a result, she copes with this lingering anxiety by amassing wealth, which she believes will insulate her from further trauma and hardship. Her pursuit of wealth manifests in selling various things to her classmates, and even when she is accused of making others sick by selling expired candy, she retains her determination to make money.

The narrative establishes early on the centrality of Raspberry and Momma’s relationship. Although Raspberry is angry with her mother in these first chapters, it is largely because Momma hasn’t been forthcoming about her new relationship with Dr. Mitchell. There is a closeness to Raspberry and Momma’s relationship even before their past struggles are revealed. Momma goes out of her way to make a big breakfast for Raspberry on Valentine’s Day; the two write homemade Valentine’s cards to each other; they catch up on the ride to school every day. Their close relationship, however, is undermined by their keeping secrets from each other. Raspberry does not explain to her mother the extent of her selling and saving, while Momma keeps the true nature of her relationship with Dr. Mitchell to herself.

The narrative implies that both Raspberry and Momma are striving for a better life but going about it in different ways. Raspberry sells chocolate and pencils to her peers, while Momma pursues a college degree and holds the neighborhood kids to a high standard of behavior. Raspberry resents Momma’s tactics and views her as being too concerned with other people’s business. She expresses real anger at her mother’s constant grammar correction: “It makes me so mad, her doing that all day long. But since she started college last year, she’s been trying to improve the way she speaks. I tell Momma to just leave me be. I like how I talk just fine” (8). To Raspberry, Momma’s pursuit of education does not have the same material benefit as her entrepreneurial schemes. This attitude underscores Raspberry’s somewhat juvenile understanding of how class and upward mobility function in society.

Raspberry goes as far as to use Momma’s educational pursuits against her. This tendency is most apparent at the end of Chapter 2: “Before I walk away, I turn around and say something I know is gonna hurt Momma bad. “He a doctor, Momma. What you think somebody like him wants with somebody like you, who lives in the projects with gangbangers and junkies?” (8). This statement is especially cutting considering the lengths to which Momma goes to ensure that Raspberry’s life will not be entirely shaped by their former struggles. Momma is “the kind of person that don’t let her surroundings mess with her head” (20), and even in the darkest moments of their homelessness she tries to point Raspberry towards the belief that “even bad times is sprinkled with a little good” (20). Amidst their hardships, Momma strives to preserve some of Raspberry’s innocence and childhood.

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