FAMILY

“I wanted to have bagels with his family too! . . . I hate my family but I know I shouldn’t.”—Jessie, age 16

1. Why does Hanna feel so drawn to Will’s family?

2. Hanna and her mother are a family of two. What other family types are there in the novel?

ART AND MUSIC

“I do that too, only with poetry. I shut myself up in my room and WRITE.” Jessie, age 16

1. What role do art and music play in the story? In individual lives?

2. If Hanna were a math whiz instead of an artist, how would the story have been different?

GRIEF AND LOSS

“That’s how it is when you lose someone you love in an accident. They’re gone so fast.”—Kaitlyn, age 17

1. How many ghosts are there in the story and who do they haunt?

RELATED READING

Hanna is an artist. Here are a couple of interesting books about other female artists who led interesting lives: Runaway Girl: The Artist Louise Bourgois, by Jan Greenberg and Margaret Bourke White, by Susan Goldman Rubin. Rubin has another fine book, Art Against the Odds, which is about people who continued to make their art even while in prison or a concentration camp or while enslaved. And for art and writing by teens, take a look at Where We Are, What We See, which is an anthology of the best art and writing from the annual Scholastic Competition.