Notifications
Clear all
Ingredients
3
Posts
3
Users
0
Reactions
214
Views
Topic starter
23/09/2025 8:08 am
I think The Ingrediants by Jason Reynolds is trying to be a relatable, light hearted story, and I think it achieves that goal super well. It has lines everyone can have some sort of relation or memory attached to like the line “Either way, whenever they leave the pool, they’re always empty. “ Everyone remembers being a kid and being told to wait to swim until your food settles, because as a kid, swimming absolutely tires you out. The light hearted atmosphere makes the story relatable through small details like these.
As a kid, and to this day, I am the summer house for my friends. I have a heated garage, basketball hoop, side by side, but every summer my friends want to do one thing: swim. And I have an in-ground pool. Me and my friends have always loved playing pool games and our age has never affected our ability to enjoy swimming. A line from the story that reminds me of my childhood specifically would be, “And on any given sweltering summer day, when Bed-Stuy becomes a microwave, the pool might as well be called heaven.” Even when me and my friends couldn’t get together, me and my siblings would HATE sitting indoors. We loved to swim until it was dark and our fingers were shriveled
23/09/2025 8:41 am
Having a place where all your friends can meet up with you must make the summer fun being able to keep close connections with your friends seeing them so often.
I also have a pool and a lot of my friends like to come over and use it throughout the summer.
Having extra amenities to help enjoy the summer is helpful to bring together friends and family, having something that everyone will enjoy.
Does it make you feel like your friends are using you because they always want to come to your house to use your stuff?
24/09/2025 9:58 am
I love how you recognized the pool as being a common space the boys in the story find comfort in, but you also related it to the pool being a comfort for your friends during the summer.
I also am often the host house for my friends, because I am the one with a big room, no siblings, ect. Even if people's go-to hangout spot in the summer is not the pool, I am sure everyone has a place where they spend a lot of time in the summer.
Is it just because you have all these amenities that friends want to hang out at your house, or has your house become the go-to comfort spot purely by habit?
