Two If by Sea (Mitchard)

Discussion Questions
1. What if there really were a child with Ian’s gift? What would the people who love such a child owe him? To protect him from those who would use him and let him have an ordinary life? to develop his gifts and learn to share them? What would such a child owe the world? How would you protect someone with abilities like Ian’s? Evaluate Frank’s approach and Julia Madrigal’s.

2. There are many different types of families in Two If by Sea: for example, Tura and Cedric; the Donovan clan; Frank’s family; and Claudia, her sisters, and her widowed father. How does each character draw what he or she needs from their biological family—or the family he or she creates?

3. Jacquelyn Mitchard uses beautiful language to describe the magical relationships that can exist between people and animals, especially horses. Why is it important to the novel that Frank is a horse trainer? What do the horse farms and the community around them add to the novel? How do the relationships with animals add to our understanding of Ian’s abilities and the power and vulnerability that come with them?

4. Were you surprised by Frank’s decision to take Ian? How do you explain this? Can there ever be a time when doing something that is wrong in the eyes of the world be the only right choice?

5. In the aftermath of the tsunami, Frank thinks: “Life was not a statement of choice in the fucking good earth or whatever Cedric had said. Life was as random as a pair of dice with ten sides.” Is Frank right? Or is Cedric? Why or why not? Do you think by the end of the book that Frank would still feel that way?

6. Do you believe that Ian has supernatural powers? Or do you believe that Ian is no more than an especially charismatic little boy? How does your understanding of Ian’s skills change throughout the course of the novel? How does it change when more of the boy’s history is revealed?

7. When Ian talks for the first time at Eden’s wedding, how does that moment function as a turning point? How does it affect Frank? At what points do the words Ian says to Frank cause him to take the next step at every critical point in their relationship?

8. Consider the following passage, as Frank proposes to Claudia: “Love can make people cruel. Love can make people weak. Love doesn’t always stay the same. And sometimes it goes dark, like a star that gets extinguished and just leaves the memory of its light.” Despite its cruelties and pitfalls, why is love worth the trouble? Why does Frank ask Claudia to love him, despite all the challenges he faces?

9. Has Frank fully experienced his grief when he asks Claudia to marry him? Why or why not? When, if ever, does Frank come to terms with his feelings for his dead wife?

10. Two if By Sea considers parenthood from every possible angle and in every possible iteration. Discuss how each character approaches the idea of parenthood. What does the power and responsibility of parenthood mean to Frank? To Claudia? To Hope? To Eden and Marty? Even to Glory Bee? What is Mitchard (who has nine children of her own, both through birth and adoption) asking the reader to consider about the bonds between parents and their children, the bonds of blood and those of choice?

11. What is the significance of the novel’s title?

12. Why are the relationships Ian and Colin forge in Britain ultimately so important? Why does Frank feel safe enough to let the boys out alone?

13. Frank’s mother says about leaving their farm: “It’s as if I’m not leaving home, Frank, it’s leaving me.” There are strong themes of finding a sense of home and family throughout Two If by Sea. Which qualities create a sense of home for each character? What creates a sense of family? Are they same thing? Why or why not?

14. The book starts with Frank seeing the wave “that would sweep away the center of his life in the minutes after midnight, and, by the time the sun rose, send surging into his arms the seed of his life to come.” How did tragedy make way for what would come next in Frank’s life? How did tragedy inform the lives of other characters? If there is a message about human existence behind the author’s insistence in seeing the “next wave,” what is it?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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