Newsletter – Aromatic – June 9, 2023

Inferring. What is it, exactly?

In The War I Finally Won, the sequel to The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, you can find the following excerpt about Ida (a girl who grew up in abject poverty) and Lady Thornton as they arrived at a hotel. The story is told from Ida’s point of view, so she doesn’t have words that match what she’s experiencing. Therefore, we must make inferences as we read Ida’s words. Remember, an inference is a good guess that’s made given the information provided.

“Welcome, madam,” he said, opening a blacked-out door. (Wartime blackouts were in effect.)

Immediately beyond the first door was pitch-dark space and a second blacked-out door. Immediately beyond the second door was an enormous, astonishingly bright room, with a smooth, shiny, black-and-white floor and a huge electric light hung with hundreds of pieces of sparkling glass.

Of course, we know that’s a crystal chandelier. The author didn’t say so, but we can infer it, given the information provided and knowing what we know about our world.

Lady Thorton twitched my hand. “Don’t ogle,” she said.

I dropped my eyes and moved to stand beside her. She spoke to a man behind a counter, and then another man picked up Lady Thorton’s suitcase—it held my things too—and led us into a small room like a closet. Lady Thorton and the man turned around, so they were facing the door we came in. The little room shook for a moment. Then the door opened, on its own, onto a different place. As though the entire building had shifted while we stood in the closet.

We know what happened, there. Do your kids? Try reading this excerpt to them, one at a time, to see if they can share with you what Ida was describing.