Frances oroark dowell biography of michael jackson

While Frances O'Roark Dowell is best known for her award-winning novels, she also hosts the popular "Off-Kilter Quilt" podcast, where she talks about her latest quilt projects with friends and fellow quilters around the globe. Her own little corner of the globe is Durham, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, two sons, and a dog named Travis. Connect with her online at FrancesDowell.com. Her books include Dovey Coe, which won the Edgar Award and the William Allen White Children’s Book Award; Where I’d Like to Be; the bestselling Secret Language of Girls trilogy; Chicken Boy; Shooting the Moon, which received a Christopher Award; the Phineas L. MacGuire series; Falling In; The Second Life of Abigail Walker; Anybody Shining; and the teen novel Ten Miles Past Normal. Her most recent book -- her first for adult readers -- is the quilting novel Birds in the Air.

Reading Group Guide for

Hazard

By Frances O’Roark Dowell

About the Book

Hazard Stokes does not want to go to therapy. He only agrees to go because Coach says the only way he’ll let Hazard back on the football field is if he sees Dr. Barth. There is nothing wrong with him. Sure, he plays aggressively, but that’s all part of the game. It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that his father has been injured in Afghanistan and is at the Walter Reed Medical Center. Or that nobody in his family is talking about what really happened in the war.

Told through a series of Hazard’s emails and texts to his therapist, parents, and best friend, this novel-in-verse examines a young boy’s anger and emotional turmoil through therapy and how we can help each other heal from trauma.

Discussion Questions

1. This book has an epigraph, a short quote at the beginning of the book that suggests the book’s theme. In this case, the author selected a quote from Walt Whitman’s poem “I Sing the Body Electric” as the epigraph: “And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? / And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?” What does Hazard suggest about the connection between a person’s body and soul? How can mental health impact physical health? (see page 78)

2. An epistolary novel is a story told through letters. What do the texts between Hazard and Jackson reveal about their friendship? What do the email exchanges between Hazard and Dr. Barth reveal about the development of their relationship? Why do you think the author chose to tell the story in this format? Why do you think she did not include emails from Dr. Barth to Hazard, only Hazard’s responses?

3. What happened that caused Hazard not to be allowed to play football until he seeks therapy with Dr. Barth?

4. Hazard writes to Dr. Barth, “Don’t get me wrong: I’m not dumb. / I make mostly As and Bs, / a C here and there / so I don’t look like I am showing off.” Look for details that suggest

Where I'd Like to Be

A ghost saved12-year-old Maddie's life when she was an infant, her Granny Lane claims, so Maddie must always remember that she is special. But it's hard to feel special when you've spent your life being shuttled from one foster home to another. And now that she's at the East Tennessee Children's Home, Maddie feels, well, less than ordinary. Six-year-old Ricky Ray, who came to the Home after his parents failed to come back from a party, thinks Maddie's the cat's meow. But what does a little boy like that know? Maddie can't stop looking for a place to call home or for people who feel like home. She even makes a "book of houses," where she glues pictures of places in which she yearns to live. Then one day, a new girl, Murphy, shows up at the Home armed with tales about exotic travels, being able to fly, and boys who recite poetry to wild horses. Maddie is enchanted....Maybe, just maybe, she's found someone who feels like home and she lets her guard down. She shows Murphy her beloved scrapbook, never anticipating that this one gesture will challenge her very ideas of what home, and family, are all about. With her astonishing ability to create characters who linger with you long after you turn the last page, Frances O'Roark Dowell explores the many definitions, both heartbreaking and awe-inspiring, of home and family.

Frances O'Roark Dowell (Author), Denise Wilbanks (Narrator)

Audiobook