Literary Devices in One Came Home
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
We don't usually think of Wisconsin when we think of Westerns, but here we have two little western-style towns on our hands with this book, complete with sheriff. Well, Placid is big enough to have...
Narrator Point of View
Usually, we can identify a first-person central narrator because she's using I, which is exactly what Georgie does. There's absolutely zero question that this is Georgie's story, and Georgie tells...
Genre
Westerns are set in the American West (or in this case, Midwest), usually sometime in the late 1800s, and historical fiction is set sometime in, uh, history. What we're saying is that a book set in...
Tone
If you've never met Scout Finch, narrator of Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird, get thee to Shmoop's character analysis pronto because Georgie Burkhardt is Scout's direct literary descende...
Writing Style
Let's talk first about the overall structure of the story. Georgie takes us from Agatha's funeral on June 7 through the end of October in 1871. However, she also has to tell us how a body everyone...
What's Up With the Title?
One Came Home is what Georgie's Ma cries when she sees Georgie at Grandfather Bolte's funeral: "One came home! One came home! Georgie, you came home!" (20.20). Georgie's return is pretty significan...
What's Up With the Ending?
The end of One Came Home is a few paragraphs of Georgie's reflections on the Meaning of Life and what she has learned. In them, Georgie reflects on all the death she's seen—Darlene, the fire vict...
Tough-o-Meter
While some of the story is told in flashback, on the whole One Came Home is a straightforward read. We have a reliable narrator who always tells the truth as she sees it and is open about exactly w...
Plot Analysis
Someday Forensic Science Will Solve This ProblemHow do you identify a body in 1871 when it's in pieces, there's no face, and it's been exposed to the elements for a week? Very carefully, using scra...
Trivia
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman, which also won a Newbery Honor, was a major influence on One Came Home. (Source.)One Came Home has been described more than once as True Grit for...
Steaminess Rating
One Came Home is not a sexy book. It's more of a hardscrabble, gun-slinging, camping out kind of book. However, we'll go ahead and bump the rating to PG just because Georgie gives us some pretty vi...