Summary

Chapter 7 is a collage of images from the summer of August's twelfth year. The chapter begins with the girls listening to music and talking about their futures as they hang out in one another's homes. As the summer progressed, the girls began to develop sexually. As Chapter 7 progresses in a series of distilled images, we see them becoming more aware of the world around them. At the end, August asked about the ashes in the urn, the first indication that her mother had died.

Analysis

Chapter 7 unfolds in a series of scenes and images that encapsulate August's twelfth summer. At the beginning of the summer the girls are still girls, but as Chapter 7 unfolds, they begin to develop and become more aware of the dangers posed by the men who walk the streets of Brooklyn. "The world was ending," August realizes. "We had been...