Maria's Duck Tales (Daddino) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
1. What do you think made a city girl from Brooklyn turn into a passionate wildlife advocate?

2. How do you think caring for the animals she writes about in her book affected the author?

3. As the relationship between the animals and the author developed, what do you think it taught her? What did it teach you?

4. If the pekin ducks continually destroyed your vegetable garden, would you have banished them? Why do you think the author didn’t?

5. It was obviously difficult for the author to release the squirrels she had nurtured in her basement through the cold winter months, would you have kept them as pets or would you have released them?

6. Why do you think that the author’s juvenile osprey visitors were so special to her?

7. Most people are afraid of swans, especially when they are protective parents raising their cygnets, why do you think the author felt that they wouldn’t harm her?

8. How would you feel if the crows and sea gulls were swooping down and capturing your ducklings? What would you do?

9. Who are your favorite characters in the book? Why?

10. How many hours a day do you think the author spent hosing down the dock and her long driveway?

11. Would you have done some of the things that the author did...like climbing from boat to boat after knee surgery or getting up in the middle of the night to protect the ducks? Why or why not?

12. What are some of the things that you learned from reading this book?
(Questions courtesy of author.)

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