Animal Dreams Themes

Straight talk: memory is totally the central theme of Animal Dreams. Basically, Codi has a memory problem: she's got a mental block on her childhood that starts with the memory of her miscarried ch...

At the beginning of Animal Dreams, Codi Noline tells us in no uncertain terms that she's no hero—especially not compared to her sister Hallie. Hallie herself, of course, pretty much hates the who...

Home is what Codi Noline is looking for in life. Well, she thinks she's looking, anyway. Her friend Emelina accuses her of being a "home ignorer" because, among other things, her walls are so bareâ...

Ah, the age old question: what will I be when I grow up? For Loyd Peregrina, learning to be something, even if it's just a dude who sorts pecans, is the essential ingredient that turns him from a b...

There are a few sentences from Animal Dreams that will probably stay with us for the rest of our lives. "'Collie's a cock mechanic,' Loyd said" is one of them (16.113). Obviously, that's because th...

At first, Animal Dreams sets up a neat dichotomy: Codi equals animals, and Hallie equals plants. Over the course of the novel, though, this analogy doesn't quite hold up. We see Codi gathering flow...

At some point in Animal Dreams, Codi says that before moving to Grace, she didn't know there could be so many shades of brown. Well, folks, this should come as no surprise, given that dirt plays a...

Folks, there's a boatload of violence in Animal Dreams—although except for the chicken killing and cockfights in White River, most of it doesn't take place directly on screen. In fact, we think t...