The Night Children Page 18
“I do.”
“So I don’t know what to do.”
Standing, Tick holds out his hand. “Tell you what.”
She takes it and lets him help her up. They are standing eye to eye now, Tick a little taller, Jule rising slightly on her toes. When she asks, she is asking more than an immediate question. “What?”
She is waiting.
So is he.
When he doesn’t answer, she says again, “What?”
Then Tick’s face breaks into a great big Castertown Crazy grin and he says, “Why don’t you stay here with us until you figure it out?”
STARSCAPE BOOKS / Reader’s Guide
THE NIGHT CHILDREN
KIT REED
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The information, activities, and discussion questions that follow are intended to enhance your reading of The Night Children. Please feel free to adapt these materials to suit your needs and interests.
WRITING AND RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
I. The WhirlyFunRide
A. Think of at least three ways you might complete this sentence in your ordinary, day-to-day life: “When you walk into the mall . . .” With friends or classmates, write each completed sentence on a sheet of brightly colored paper. Post the sentences on the walls of your classroom. Do you see any patterns in terms of words or phrases?
B. Throughout the novel, the author uses bold, terse, and often simple language to describe characters and objects. Make a list of striking words, names, and phrases from the novel, including MegaMall, Tick Stiles, the Dark Hall, “buddabuddabudda,” and “push has come to shove” (p. 156). Write a short paragraph describing the effect of this language on the reader and analyzing the way Amos Zozz uses simple terms and vague ideas to control his workers. Is Kit Reed controlling you?
C. On a sheet of graph paper, design your own WhirlyFun-Ride, including notes describing how the experience will feel to riders. Invent the words and tune for a jingle to entice kids to shop at the MegaMall or to buy certain products.
D. The Night Children can be considered as both a satire and a science fiction novel. Go to the library or go online to find definitions for each of these literary terms. Make a list of books, movies, and even cartoons that represent each of these genres. With friends or classmates, discuss how these two literary elements work together to create a strong impact in the novel.
II. The MegaTrail
A. In the character of Amos Zozz, give a speech to a group of Zozzco architects assigning them to design the MegaTrail. What information will you give them? What will you withhold? What types of persuasion will you use?
B. In the character of Isabella Zozz, give a speech to Zozzco employees explaining the glory of earning stripes and the horrors of losing them. Or, as Isabella, write a letter to yourself describing the person you see when you look in the mirror.
C. For exercise II.A or II.B above, invite friends or classmates to play the roles of Zozzpeople, responding to Amos or Isabella’s speech with only the “buddabuddabudda” sound. What can you convey with this sound? How does this lack of language affect your sense of power over your life?
D. Amos Zozz rules the MegaMall and aspires to rule the world as a cruel dictator. Go to the library or go online to learn more about a dictator from the past century, such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, or Fidel Castro. Compile your information on an informative poster or booklet-style report in which you describe the dictator’s childhood, education, rise to power, and the people or groups he strove to destroy. How did this dictator meet his end? Share your findings with friends or classmates. Discuss how Amos Zozz compares to the real dictator upon which you reported.
III. The Dark Hall
A. Imagine you have somehow managed to escape Amos Zozz’s overtaking of Castertown and now live as a hermit somewhere just outside the city limits. Write a series of journal entries describing what you see from your window and how you survive.
B. Absent from The Night Children is any formal concept of education, books, or even a world beyond the MegaMall and Castertown. Write a short essay describing your day without referring to school, reading, or your understanding of life outside the boundaries of your town. Share your essay with friends or classmates.
C. Create your own Dark Hall with a collage of words, magazine clippings, paintings, drawings, and found materials. Or, in the character of a recently freed Dark Hall prisoner, write a short memoir describing your experience.
D. Imagine that after defeating his grandfather, Lance the Loner disappears from the MegaMall, leaving behind a videotaped farewell. Create a video in which you, as Lance, comment on why and how you saved the people of Castertown and the night children. Include the phrase “knowledge is power” and explain what it means to you. Present your video to friends or classmates.
E. Is life a WhirlyFunRide? Should it be? Should the WhirlyFunRide be a kid’s ultimate desire? Should the Dark Hall be the ultimate horror? Answer these questions by writing a song, poem, six-panel comic strip, or short essay.
F. Imagine you are Jule ten years after the events of the novel have taken place. Have the mysteries of your life been solved? Are you still friends with Tick? Where do you live? Do you still believe that “cool kids shop at the MegaMall”? Write a second, two-to-three page epilogue following Jule a decade later and beginning with the words “It’s midnight and Jule Devereaux . . .”
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. The first sentence of The Night Children begins, “When you walk into the mall . . .” What is shocking about the conclusion of this sentence? To whom is the writer speaking? Does this point of view affect the way you read the story?
2. What is likable and/or unlikable about Jule at the start of the story? Do you think she is a good kid or a bad kid, an ordinary kid or an unusual kid? What experiences in her life have made Jule the way she is? Explain your answer.
3. Is choosing between shops in various sections of the mall truly a free choice? Is working at the MegaMall a free choice? Are the Crazies and the Dingos more or less free than the residents of Castertown? Is Amos Zozz free?
4. Why has Amos made Isabella his 8 gurehead? What is the importance of the Zozzco uniform stripes? What does the image of stripes recall? List several ways in which insect imagery is used in the novel.
5. Is Jule less obedient and less compassionate because she has become a night child later in her life? Compare and contrast the characters of Jule and Doakie in terms of their independence, sense of right and wrong, and the actions they choose to take. To what other character or characters would you be interested in comparing Jule? Explain your choices and comparisons.
6. What power does Burt Arno wield over the Dingos? How is his power similar to that of Amos Zozz’s power over the Zozzco employees? Compare this to the authority of Tick Stiles and the control exercised by Lance the Loner.
7. Are children cruel? What evidence can you find in the novel to answer this question with a yes and/or a no? How might your own life experiences lead you to answer this question? Are adults more or less mean than children? Explain.
8. How has the relationship between parent and child been manipulated in The Night Children? Had you been Lance the Loner, would you have had the courage to turn on Amos? Why or why not? Is Amos’s grandchild the only person who could find the will to defeat him?
9. What is Tick’s source of compassion? While Amos Zozz remembers only the cruelty of his childhood playmates, the Castertown Crazies seem to have a sense of both loyalty and ethics. Has Amos Zozz actually created better children through his own cruelty?
10. Do malls have power over us in the real world? Why or why not? Is your answer to this question dierent than it would have been before the economic crisis? Explain.
11. What is the MegaTrail? Weren’t the Zozzco employees and the night children already insects inside the MegaMall hive before Amos’s bizarre new device was revealed? What makes the MegaTrail scarier than the MegaMall i
tself? Who is most afraid of the MegaTrail and why?
12. What troubling questions remain for Tick and Jule at the novel’s end? How does each of these characters deal with their unsolved mysteries? Do you think they will ever find the answers they seek? What advice would you give to them?
13. What should happen to the MegaMall after the departure of Amos Zozz? Is there a safe or healthy way to run such a place? Should the MegaMall be destroyed?
14. Does The Night Children lead you to reflect on your own experience of shopping malls? If so, has it affected your sense of how or why you shop? Has it changed the way you think about your parents or guardians and the work they do? How might you define the terms value, want, need, and family after reading this book? Explain your answers.
15. Why do Lance, Tick, and Jule stay in the mall at the novel’s end? Would you stay?
Kit Reed is the author of the Alex Award–winning Thinner Than Thou and many other novels. Reed has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, and collections of her short ction have been nalists for the James Tip-tree, Jr., Award. Kit Reed lives in Middletown, Connecticut, where she is Resident Writer at Wesleyan University. The Night Children is her first book for young readers.