Karley+Sullivan

Connection Master:
 * 1) Father and son- most people can relate to father/child relationship pg. 5
 * 2) When the father says he would die for him, this shows love. This relationship is now on a new level where they are not just family but they truly love each other. Everybody has somebody to love, even if not a family member pg. 10-11

Discussion Director: 1. Why did the woman kill herself? She could obviously not take it anymore, but let her young child could. What happened to her that was so bad, but yet a child could bear it? 2. Who are the bad guys? The child refers them as the good guys and not the bad guys, yet when a "troop" of men pass by and they hide, the child asks if the are bad, in which the man replies that they are. So who are these people and what makes them so bad? 3. What has happened to the world and how long? Something has distroyed the world, with people living in fear and barely managing to get by. When did this happen though, because we see that the child was born after whatever happened but the father is still able to remember. 4. What is wrong with the man? We know he is sick, for he has been coughing up blood, but what is exactly the cause? Is it pushing too hard? The cold weather? Or some kind of disease? Do you think that his son is the only reason he keeps going?

Vocabulary Miser: 1. krugerrands (pg. 142)- a South African gold coin with a portrait of President Kruger on the obverse

2. coolingboard (pg. 130)- a plank for laying out a corpse 3. canebrake (pg. 115)- a thicket of canes

Literary Illuminary 1. pg. 169 "Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave." Obviously nobody wants to be here but why would anybody not want to leave? What does the old man mean? 2. pg. 184 "Who are they hiding from?" "From each other." Trust in humanity has gone, everybody fends for themselves, why is the boy so trusting? 3.pg. 191 "Why didn't they leave the road?" "They couldn't. Everything was on fire." This is a big clue onto what happened to the world. Was it a solar flare? A bomb? Natural disaster?

Connection Master: 1. pg. 162 the father mention that the boy needs to get sunlight to get some vitamin d. This past year I had a serious vitamin d deficency so i can relate to how they felt. It makes all your joints hurt, and makes movement hard, I can have sympathy towards them from my own personal experience. 2. When the father dies the boy mourns his death. A few years ago my grandmother passed away, it's not at quite the same level, but I still feel for the child because I know what it is like to lose somebody close to you.