significance of Utility poles

Utility poles appear throughout all areas in the novel, especially in and around the town of Delhi. Utility poles carry electrical wires and phone wires to homes and towns throughout the nation. They are designed poorly in the novel, so that birds may land on the wire, touching the other wire, completing a circuit, and causing electrocution. This is the case with Frightful. Jon and Susan Wood use her electrocution as a way to inspire kids to write to utility companies to tell them to rework the utility poles to make electrocution impossible. By the novel’s end, only three poles have been fixed, and the children of Delhi continue to write letters to press for greater change.