Book Discussions Guides/Questions - Youth & Adult Services

Youth Services Department

Title	Author	Level
Bookstore Mouse	by Peggy Christian	grades 4-6
Charlotte's Web	by E.B. White	grades 3-6
Fever 1793	by Laurie Anderson	grades 6-8
Hank Zipzer: Niagra Falls, or Does It?	by Henry Winkler	grades 3-5
How to Eat Fried Worms	by Thomas Rockwell	grades 2-4
Love That Dog	by Sharon Creech	grades 4-8
My Father's Dragon	by Ruth Stiles Gannett	grades 3-5
Runt	by Marion Dane Bauer	grades 4-6
Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief	by Wendelin Van Draanen	grades 4-8
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe	by C.S. Lewis	grades 4-8
The Sign of the Beaver	by Elizabeth George Speare	grades 4-7
The Tiger Rising	by Kate DiCamillo	grades 4-8
The Wreckers	by Iain Lawrence	grades 6-8

Adult Services

1. Book discussion kits include a tote bag, up to 10 copies of the book, discussion questions, information about the author, and sometimes other materials to enhance
the reading experience.

2. Book discussion kits may be checked out for 6 weeks. They may not be renewed.

3. Holds may not be placed on book discussion kits. However, kits may be reserved in
advance by contacting Adult Services at 630-554-3150.

4. The kits should be picked up at the Adult Services desk and then checked out
at the circulation desk.

5. Kits are checked out to one person. Members of the group should get their copies of
the book from the person who checked out the kit.

6. The person who checks out the kit is responsible for returning the complete kit.

7. Overdue book discussion kits will be fined 10¢ per item per day, including the bag,
each book, and any other materials checked out as part of the kit. There is no grace period.

8. Failure to return book discussion kits on time may delay or prevent use by other groups. Repeated overdues may affect a group's future borrowing privileges for these kits.

9. Click on the Title to be taken to Book Discussion Guide/Questions.

Cage of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard
A young Mormon girl discovers the true meaning of sin and compassion when she sets out to avenge the deaths of her two sisters years after she witnessed their murders

The Circus Fire: A True Story by Stewart O’Nan
This nonfiction book tells of tragedy and heroism when the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus big top caught fire during a performance in the summer of 1944 with over 8,000 people trapped inside.

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
In this memoir, Elizabeth Gilbert recounts her year-long journey of self-discovery and soul-searching to recover from a painful divorce and deepening depression.

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Praised as the finest American novel to emerge from World War I, this is the appealing and tragic story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
After years of trying to hide the truth about her family, Jeannette Walls reveals the story of her eccentric and often homeless parents and her unconventional and difficult childhood.

Little Children by Tom Perrotta
In this suspenseful and darkly comic novel, three couples raise their children in a quiet suburb where nothing ever seems to happen until one summer when a convicted child molester moves back to town and two of the parents begin an unlikely affair.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
This novel mixes fact and fiction in its portrayal of the relationship between Mamah and Borthwick Cheney and architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the scandal surrounding it, and its tragic end.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Greek-American Calliope Stephanides’ sense of identity is compromised by her discovery that she is intersexual. Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

My Ántonia by Willa Cather
In this literary classic, a New York lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with a Bohemian immigrant girl.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the difficulties of assimilation, and generational differences are explored in this novel that follows the Ganguli family from their traditional life in Calcutta through their struggles to adapt to the American way of life in the late 1960s.

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
This is the true story of seven young Iranian women and a teacher who met secretly each week to read and discuss forbidden Western books. Soon the stories in these classics led them to talk about their own lives and loves, dreams and disappointments.

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
When 14 year old Trixie says that she was raped by her ex-boyfriend, her father, a comic book artist with a hidden past, decides to take matters into his own hands.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski tells about his time with the circus as a young man during the Great Depression and about his love for Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, and for Rosie, the elephant who gives them hope.

Book Discussion Groups held at the Library