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Chapters 23-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary: “Dana Levinson”
By lunchtime, rumors have started that “the swastika guy” has been caught, but no one knows who it is yet (135). Dana, Andrew, Michael, and Caroline offer and debunk theories. When Pamela is absent from science class, Dana begins to suspect it may have been her and is shocked, especially since Pamela was an early volunteer on the paper chain project. After school, Dana checks YouTube since Adam always seems to have the scoop before anyone else. He has already uploaded several videos announcing that Pamela is the culprit. His coverage includes photos and family history, notably that her great uncle, Roy, was head of the Shadbush County KKK chapter.
Dana is furious at Pamela but also feels sorry for her. She cannot understand why Pamela would wreck her life over something so pointless. As she passes the park across from school, she sees students lined up to speak with Adam. Reflecting on how he had so much information about Pamela ready to go and how he has been stationed across the school for weeks, she realizes he must have known it was Pamela all along. He could have stopped this weeks ago but chose to allow it to continue. He has been manipulating the town, and they have allowed it. She wonders what else he knows.
Chapter 24 Summary: “ReelTok”
In a transcript of Adam’s interview with Jordie, Adam reveals that Pamela has admitted to painting all the swastikas except the first one. Adam crows that they have caught one white supremacist, but another one is still “out there” (144). He adds, “This mystery is far from over” (144).
Chapter 25 Summary: “Michael Amorosa”
Michael has a nightmare that 800,000 paper links choke the silo where they are being stored and turn it into a rocket, and he laments that he counted them for nothing. Just then, his mother wakes him up for school. The paper chain count is at almost four and a half million. They continue to receive donations from all over the world daily, delivered free by FedEx and UPS and stored around town. His mother is worried about him; he has lost weight, is not eating enough, and is counting in his sleep.
Michael, Caroline, and Link have drawn media attention beyond ReelTok’s fanbase. They have a Zoom conversation with Holocaust survivors in Florida who express admiration for the project, which will enable their stories to be carried forward even after they are gone. When one man asks the students to put his mother’s name on one of the links, Michael immediately agrees, and each of the survivors gives their family members’ names as well.
Later, when the students are gathered in the art room fulfilling the request, Michael notices Jordie staring blank-eyed at his links. When Jordie rushes out of the room, Michael follows him. Jordie admits that he has spoken with Pamela, and she does not think she did anything wrong. Her father, too, believes the school is making “a big deal out of nothing” (151). Jordie is upset because he realizes nothing will change her thinking, which is “the reason we have things like the Holocaust in the first place” (151). Speaking with the survivors is “a turning point” for Michael (151) but also, he believes, for the others: Each link now represents a human face.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Lincoln Rowley”
At Thanksgiving, Link sees his grandmother for the first time since everything happened. His grandfather is proud and enthusiastic, but his grandmother is more reticent, seemingly disliking the absence of privacy “these days” and suspicious of Adam’s “anti-everything” behavior (153). His grandmother freezes when she sees the large number of donations people have sent Link—prayer shawls, prayer books, wine goblets, and kippot. One man is even driving from Toronto to bring “a Torah that was rescued from the Nazis” (155). Link reflects that he does not know how his parents and grandparents feel, deep down, about his bar mitzvah.
On their way to dinner, they pass one of the municipal spaces where approximately half a million of the five million links are being stored. They stop to see them. His grandmother is transfixed, and Link brings her inside to get a closer look. She tells him that the nuns at the orphanage were kind but never told them about their families. The Nazis conducted regular searches, and the nuns feared entrusting young children with such dangerous secrets. His grandmother did not learn about her family until she was 73 years old, too old to change and too removed from circumstances to be able to connect with her family’s loss on a personal level.
The paper chain project and Link’s bar mitzvah are enabling her to “reclaim [her] family” (158), which she could not have done without him. When she hugs him, “a mini avalanche” of links half buries them (158). Link feels “closer to [his] grandmother than [he] ever [has]” (158).
Chapter 27 Summary: “Caroline McNutt”
Caroline oversees a donation of almost 2,000 links from Illinois, and Michael announces that they have topped the six million mark. Caroline is elated. Her first thoughts are about her success as seventh-grade president and her expectation that she will be elected eighth-grade president in a landslide. Everyone cheers when they hear the news, but they quickly grow solemn as they reflect on what the paper chain represents. Everyone congratulates Caroline.
She runs into Michael and Dana as they are on their way to announce the news to Adam, who has pitched a tent in the park to keep warm in the increasingly cold weather. Caroline joins them, but Adam has already heard the news, citing his many sources among “TokNation” (164). Dana assumes the completion of the project means Adam will be leaving, but he replies that Chokecherry was always his intended story. His big-city home is “an easy target for haters” (165), but he believes small towns are just as bad. It was the swastikas and past connection to the KKK that drew him to Chokecherry. Caroline had always resented Adam’s condescension, but she tolerated him because his videos helped the project gain attention. Now, she can no longer ignore it. Michael is confused about Adam’s attitude, and Dana is resentful. As the students turn to leave, Adam promises they will not want to miss his latest interview.
Chapter 28 Summary: “ReelTok”
In the transcript of his interview with Link, Adam asks Link how he feels about Pamela. Link says he “feels bad” for his friend, but when Adam pushes him for details and asks if it’s “because [Link] believe[s] her story about not doing the first swastika” (167), Link gives a vague response. Adam reveals that he was arrested for starting a fire in the park when the weather got cold. Residents of a house across the way saw him on their video security footage and reported him. Adam realizes that the footage would show who entered the school on the morning the first swastika appeared. With the help of a hacker, he accesses the footage and reveals that the original culprit was Link himself.
Chapters 23-28 Analysis
This section shows the students grappling with news of Pamela’s guilt and leads up to the revelation that Link is responsible for the first swastika. Korman intersperses ReelTok transcripts strategically to build tension and suspense for the reveal. In addition, alternating between the students’ perspectives and the transcripts highlights the ongoing dynamic between those who wish to connect, inspire, and elevate and those who choose to exploit the negative.
Although Dana is one of the people most affected by Pamela’s actions, her chapter focuses more on Adam. Though she is angry at Pamela, Dana also feels sorry for her. She understands that, thanks to the paper chain project, people in Chokecherry now have a better understanding of just how harmful Pamela’s actions were; additionally, thanks to social media, Pamela will have to deal with condemnation from people all around the world. Dana thinks, “What Pamela did was hateful, but what’s even harder to take is how pointless it was” (140). Dana’s reaction to Pamela shows her maturity, and the fact that she quickly turns her attention to the bigger problem—Adam—shows that she now truly feels like a part of the Chokecherry community.
In learning about Pamela’s family’s history with the KKK, Link mentions that Pamela claimed the Night of a Thousand Flames was “made up” by the media. Dana is horrified: “Denying the past is the surest way to make sure it happens again!” (139). Although Adam’s “sleazy” reporting gives credence to the idea that not all forms of media are legitimate, Dana’s words stress The Importance of Collective Memory. If Chokecherry had made a point of acknowledging and remembering the Night of a Thousand Flames, the city would have fewer dirty secrets for Adam to dig up and exploit.
Dana realizes that Adam must have known all along about Pamela but kept the information to himself so that he could create a narrative for his audience. Placing his interview with Jordie immediately after Dana’s chapter shows how he continues to manipulate the situation. Pamela has not claimed responsibility for the first swastika, which Adam highlights to promote his next video; this also makes it clear that, when he reveals Link painted the first swastika, his motives still revolve purely around himself and his platform. Adam is not interested in the truth for Chokecherry’s sake—he merely enjoys the attention he gets from these shocking twists.
Chapter 25 shows how the responsibility of overseeing the project has begun to wear on Michael, an indication of his level of engagement. His chapter also explores The Importance of Collective Memory through the meeting with the Holocaust survivors. Their presence is a reminder that history moves quickly: They are the last generation who can speak of the horrors personally, and once they are gone, it will be up to the following generations to carry the memory. The project becomes more personal, symbolized by the names of the survivors’ family members who died. The students’ knowledge and understanding grow with each stage of the project, as their engagement becomes increasingly personal.
Michael’s chapter also conveys how Jordie is coping with the revelation about Pamela. Jordie’s sensitivity was already apparent in Chapter 22: He was struggling with his and Pamela’s breakup in a way that she did not seem to be. From Michael’s perspective, it becomes evident that Jordie is also struggling with Pamela’s indifference to her actions, as well as her father’s. Jordie takes the responsibility of writing the survivors’ names seriously. Seeing Pamela’s intractability enables him to understand why bad things continue to happen and seems to drive his commitment to creating positive actions in response.
Link’s connection to the past also becomes more personal via his emotional encounter with his grandmother. His desire to embrace his Jewish heritage shows his grandmother how to claim it as well. It is not about having all the answers but about moving forward one step at a time. Each step, each stage of learning, builds into something larger. The avalanche of paper chains that covers Link and his grandmother exemplify this, as do the many donations he has received from around the country and world. This moment also shows The Power of Individual and Community Action; what started as a relatively small school project has turned into not only a worldwide push for acceptance but also a chance for Link to bond with his family over their newly discovered past. This scene makes the reveal of Link’s guilt all the more shocking, giving Korman room to explore The Complexity of Motives in the final chapters.
In Caroline’s chapter, the paper chain reaches the six million mark. Her expectation that the project will fuel future student government success for her introduces a selfish motive, though it differs from Adam’s selfishness. Caroline is participating in meaningful action that benefits her community. Though she was never happy with Adam’s presence in town, she stood by because she—and the project—benefited from his exposure. Caroline thinks about herself but sees herself as part of something bigger as well. Adam, on the other hand, is perfectly willing to exploit middle school children if it means achieving his own success. Korman highlights the contrast by following Caroline’s chapter with a transcript of Adam’s interview with Link, in which he confronts the boy, on camera, with his knowledge of Link’s guilt.
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