Online Book Club - 1984 - Week One Discussion

Online Book Club - 1984 - Week One Discussion

Welcome back, Readers!

I'm Mare Alos, your new Young Adult Librarian, and after a few months' hiatus we're joining the West Springfield High School Library's Book Club and reading George Orwell's 1984 and Victoria Aveyard's Red Queen.  I'm currently listening to the audio version of Red Queen in my car and reading 1984 on my couch.

Here are a few discussion questions for 1984, courtesy of Ms. Rowe:

April 6th - Read pages 1-27 and the appendix, starting at page 246.

1. What is a totalitarian regime? How does such a regime attain, maintain, and increase power? What is its main concern? How does it compare with other political structures?--Democracy, for example.

2. What role does technology play in this book? In what ways does the Party employ technology? In what ways does technology make the overall themes of this book possible?

3. Which is worse: mind control or physical control? In what sense are they one and the same?

4. Think about Newspeak. Does language shape thought? Action? Is language necessary for either thought or action? Without language, does reality exist? Does perception?



Discussion questions for Red Queen are forthcoming...so stay tuned and keep reading!

Online Book Club - Conversion - Final Discussion!!

Good morning readers!

We hope that your holidays went well...whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or anything else. As long as you got to spend some quiet time enjoying friends, family, and the extremely unseasonable weather we were having, that's all that counts, right??

You should also have had time to finish our Online Book Club read. We truly hope that you all enjoyed Conversion.

It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can’t.

First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago...

In the final chapters, Colleen tries to alert the Massachusetts Board of Health that she believes that Emma is responsible for creating the Mystery Illness in her grief and anger over the dissolution of her relationship with Tad (Mr. Mitchell). When no one believes her, it is diagnosed as Conversion Disorder and life seems to move on... Colleen knows better, though, and Emma's mother seems to trust her to keep their family's dark secret. Colleen also learns from Ms. Slater that like Ann Putnam and the girls from the seventeen hundreds, she assumed that the girls at St. Joan's were faking and that she'd been pushing Colleen to reveal that to the school officials.  The book closes with Ann Putnam's confession to the village of Salem about her part in the false accusations of witchcraft that led to so many deaths.

What were your final thoughts on the book?
Did you enjoy it overall?
Were there any points where you felt the characters or plot fell down from what you'd hoped? Did anything truly surprise you?

Online Book Club - Conversion - Week Five Discussion

Hello Readers!

Can you believe we're almost done with Conversion? 

We hope you've all been having fun reading along with us. 

It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can’t.

First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago...

In pages 262 - 321, we learn that in the seventeen hundreds, Tittibe is now being forced to name other witches in order to protect the local Reverend and his flock. Ann and her friends have become swept up in the drama, and though she feels horribly guilty, Ann cannot make herself speak the truth. Meanwhile, in 2012, Colleen has discovered Ann's true identity and the fact that Arthur Miller basically wrote her out of The Crucible. The Massachusetts Board of Health and a gaggle of scientists come to Danvers to try to determine the cause of the Mystery Illness, but Colleen makes a terrible discovery about Mr. Mitchell and her friend Emma and how it all might be connected.

Here are some questions where we'd love to hear your thoughts:
1. What did you think of Katherine Howe's description of Bethany Witherspoon? Did you draw a connection to anyone in the real world?
2. What did you think when Ann realizes "We're beginning to understand that our game has been wrestled awway from us. That in a way we cannot fully understand, it's nothing to do with us at all"?
3. What do you think about how Emma seems to be connected to the Mystery Illness?

Please, give us any thoughts that you have about the pages we've read so far, BUT...NO SPOILERS please!! If you read ahead, make sure not to give away any clues to things that may come ahead.

Online Book Club - Conversion - Week Four Discussion

Good Morning!

We hope you all enjoyed reading the fourth section of Conversion by Katherine Howe.

It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can’t.

First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago...

In pages 190 - 259, we learn that Ann and her friends become swept up in the drama and importance of their "affliction," accusing the slave Tittabe and several others in the village of hurting them through witchcraft. Meanwhile in Danvers, in 2012, Colleen's friends discover more and more girls are becoming afflicted with the Mysterious Illness. No one girl has similar symptoms...

Here are some questions where we'd love to hear your thoughts:
1. What did you think of Tittabe's confession upon the stand?
2. Are you, like Colleen, convinced that Emma had something to do with Mr. Mitchell's leaving St. Joan's?
3. What did you think of Anjali's symptoms?

Please, give us any thoughts that you have about the pages we've read so far, BUT...NO SPOILERS please!! If you read ahead, make sure not to give away any clues to things that may come ahead.

Online Book Club - Conversion - Week Three Discussion!

Good Morning!

We hope you all enjoyed reading the third section of Conversion by Katherine Howe. We're just about halfway done now!

It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can’t.

First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago...

In pages 125 - 189, we see the mystery illness of St. Joan's hit mass media aND she learns the number of affected girls keeps growing. Colleen's mystery texter keeps contacting her. She discovers her teacher is not returning to school, but has no idea why.  In the 1700s, we learn that Ann has become part of the scheme Abigail devised...

Here are some questions where we'd love to hear your thoughts:
1. Why do you think that the school nurse and others are convinced that Colleen is somehow involved with the mystery illness?
2. Why do you think Ann went along with Abby's scheme to scam the village elders?
3. What do you think has happened to cause Mr. Mitchell to leave the school?

Please, give us any thoughts that you have about the pages we've read so far, BUT...NO SPOILERS please!! If you read ahead, make sure not to give away any clues to things that may come ahead.