The Light Between Oceans, by M. L. Stedman

Characters
Janus Rock and related people	Port Partaguese
Tom Sherbourne Isabel “Izzy” Graysmark Lucy Violet   Ed Sherbourne – Tom’s father Cecil - brother   Franz Johannes Roennfeldt   Windward Spirit – supply boat Ralph Addicott Bluey Smart	Graysmark family Bill and Violet Hugh and Alfie – sons killed in war   Hannah Roennfeldt – Lucy-Grace’s mother Septimus Potts – Hannah’s father Gwen - sister   Sergeant Knuckey

For discussion:

1. Would you like to live isolated in a light house?  What about isolated but somewhere more luxurious and with less work?

2. Could you be like Izzy – not see her fiancé for six months and then, after a brief honeymoon, move far away from her family and friends? 

3. Discuss the characters’ different childhood experiences and how it influences their decisions:

• Tom – father banished his mother, experiences with death in the war
• Septimus – sent as a young child to Western Australia alone for adoption
• Hannah and Gwen – losing mother at young age

4. Discuss the main characters.  Can you imagine or understand their feelings and emotions?

5. Why did Bluey turn in Tom and Izzy?  

6. Why did Tom write Hannah the first letter and then send the rattle?  Do you think he knew they would eventually be discovered through the rattle?

7. Discuss Hannah’s decision to let Isabel have Lucy-Grace.  Also, discuss her decision at the end to testify in support of Tom and Isabel.  Could you do either one of these things?

8. Consider Frank’s statement to Hannah about being happy. “I choose to, I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.”   How did that influence decisions and events in the novel?

9. Why did Isabel suddenly change her mind and tell the truth when she was so close to getting Lucy back?

10. How do you think Lucy-Grace was eventually able to lead a normal childhood?  What part did Septimus play in her adjustment?

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The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

Characters
San Francisco – current day	Changmian - 1864	Changmian – current day
Olivia – narrator Parents – Jack Yee and Louise Kenfield Brothers – Kevin and Tommy   Kwan – half-sister George – Kwan’s husband Virgie – George’s cousin from Canada living with them   Simon Bishop – Olivia’s husband Elza – Simon’s deceased girlfriend   Samantha – Olivia and Simon’s daughter   Bob Laguini – Louise’s 2nd husband   Yin people	Miss Banner Nunumu    Yiban Johnson   General Cape   Lao Lu   Zeng   Missionaries	Big Ma – died in accident day Kwan arrived   Du Yun/Du Lili Buncake – Du Lili’s deceased  daughter   Kwan (Pancake)   Andy – Boston grad student         SPOILER ALERT!  Chart at end with reincarnations

 For discussion:

NOTE:  Page numbers are from paperback edition.

1. Miss Banner learned to sense the world like a Chinese person (sight, touch, hear, smell, taste) but was never able to eliminate “her American sense of importance.”  (Chapter 3, page 49)  How did this affect Miss Banner and Nunumu?

2. A visitor found Changmian populated and vibrant one month after the Manchu soldiers set fires at the cave entrances.  Were the people real or ghosts?  If real, how did they survive?  (Chapter 22, page 339)

3. Do you think Kwan is really Olivia’s half sister or was she switched with Buncake?  (End of Chapter 17)

4. What did you think about Simon’s sterility and Elza’s pregnancy?  At the end of the book he was not sterile and the doctor’s thought the diagnosis had been a mistake.  Did you think Elza was lying or that she was pregnant by someone else?

5. What is the difference between tradition and superstition?   (Chinese tying rooster to lid of coffin to help ghost body fly away and American tales about Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy)

 
6. The Chinese and Americans had different reactions after witnessing the accident on the way to Changmian.  Kwan says that in China, the driver is always at fault, but Olivia says that “A dead pedestrian is a dead pedestrian, no matter whose fault.”     Kwan told Olivia and Simon that, “In China you always responsible for someone else, no matter what.  You get run over, this my fault…”  (Chapter 14, page 199)    Can you understand this difference in view?  What is your opinion?

7. Would you be willing to go to Changmian and live and explore like Olivia and Simon?  Would Olivia have gone if she had known the actual conditions?

8. Did Kwan and Olivia really see ghosts?   At one point Kwan pretended to see Elza but Olivia really saw her and heard her say, “Simon, wait for me.”  What alternative explanations are there?  (Pages 105, 107)

9. Do you think Kwan has been reincarnated in Samantha?

Reincarnations: Olivia was Miss Banner Olivia; Elza was Olivia’s mother two lifetimes ago Simon was Yiban Johnson Kwan was Nunumu George was Zeng