These Is My Words (Turner)

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for These Is My Words:

1. Trace Sarah's evolution from a young, unschooled girl with rough, homespun grammar to a polished and literate writer. Where in her diary writings do you begin to notice the change?

2. Does Sarah's picture of the West challenge or confirm your ideas of life on the frontier? Think of the many losses, the hardships and how settlers surmounted them. Are we, in modern times, as tenacious and courageous as Sarah and her ilk?

3. Talk about Captain Jack's transformation—or is it Sarah's transformation? What ultimately brings to two together?4. Although Sarah's diary is fictional (there is no actual diary according to Turner), it is based on stories about the author's great-grandmother. Do you feel the story is realistic ... or highly romanticized? Is Sarah credible...do you find her story convincing?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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