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, take a look at these LitLovers Talking Points to help get your discussion started for Alex and Me:
1. Would you like to have understood more about Pepperberg herself? She reveals little about her parents, failed marriage, and relationships with colleagues. Nor does she explain, as one critic puts it: "how she ended up in her 50s, alone and jobless, reduced to eating 14 tofu meals a week (to save money, not the earth). Her approach to herself is neither scientific nor humanistic: the woman remains an enigma."
2. Talk about the scientific community, which initially rejected Pepperberg's observations and papers about Alex. Why? What did Pepperberg have to overcome to prove the scientific worth of her work with birds, especially Alex?
3. Questions have been raised about Pepperberg's cruelty of confining to a cage a creature that has the cognitive skills of a 5-year-old. Where do you stand on this?
4. When reading about Alex, did you get the sense that he reminded you of "someone you know?"
5. Discuss the degree of Pepperberg's grief over Alex's death. What is so profound about his dying—or the dying of any beloved pet ? Might Alex's death be different than a dog or cat?
6. What is the connection—the degree of affection—that bonds humans to? How can it be explained...whether cat or dog or bird or ferret or horse? Why are animals or birds so deeply appealing to humans...and what makes them relate to us?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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