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 The Puzzle King:
1. Talk about what it was like for nine-year-old Simon Phelps—or what it would be like for any young child—to leave his family and emigrate to a land on the opposite side of the world. Talk also about the reasons Simon was sent by his mother. What was he leaving behind, and what did she hope for him?
2. Consider Flora and Seema's experiences in emigrating: how similar were their experiences to Simon's?
3. In what way are Flora and Seema different from one another? Why does Seema form a relationship with an American who evinces anti-semitism?
4. Simon and Flora have differing personalities: he is artistic and serious—intense in his convictions; she more lighthearted and conventional. What makes their marriage work?
5. When the two sisters return to Germany on their mother's death, in what way does Seema feel reconnected to her homeland? What is life like for their younger sister, Margot, in post-World War I Germany?
6. Why did so many German Jews choose not to leave Europe at the onset of the Nazi takeover? Why did they not comprehend what was happening in their country? Is their lack of foresight simply part of human nature?
7. Discuss the heroism on the part of Simon and Flora as they travel to Germany in 1936 in an attempt to save the lives of family members.
8. What other books have you read about either the immigrant experience in the late-19th / early-20th centuries or the experience of European Jews during the Holocaust? Does your knowledge from any of those works have bearing on your reading or understanding of The Puzzle King?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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