JTB-DQ ~ Book III ~ Town Boys and Mountain Boys

8. What role does Abraham play? What lessons does he teach Jim, both in the field and in the alley?

9. What do we know about Whitey Whiteside, "the unexpected guest" (pp. 96-101)?

10. Jim woke up on the first day of school thinking, "The morning smelled like school. The previous morning had smelled only like summer, like dew and grass and crops growing in the fields." What does school smell like to you?

11. When he went to the old school, Jim knew who he could outrun (see p. 76). Things were different at the new school. Do you remember going to a new school? Do you remember who you could outrun?

12. On the "Big Day" there's a Ferris wheel (yes, it's capitalized) at the open house for the new school. Last month we read about the wheel that Mr. Ferris designed for Chicago, so compare it with the one in the town of Aliceville, North Carolina.

13. Zeno told Jim, "Everybody knows you ain't got much of a town if a railroad track runs though it but the train won't stop" (p. 88). Explain how the train figured in the naming of Aliceville. And maybe tell us about the name of your town. Do trains figure into your town's history?

14. I can imagine "the red school on top of the hill" (p. 109). What was your school like?