A Long Walk to Water By, Linda Sue Park

1. Starting with the first chapter, readers learn about life in southern Sudan through what the text says explicitly and through inferences that can be drawn from the writing. Discuss southern Sudan’s geography and climate, government and politics, schools and education, languages and religions, people and population, plants and animals, and family life and communities. How do each of these aspects of the Southern Sudan help you to understand the purpose of the novel?

SOUTHERN SUDAN GEOGRAPHY GOVERNMEN SCHOOOLS LANGUAGES PEOPLE AND PLANTS FAMILY LIFE AND T AND AND AND POPULATION AND AND CLIMATE POLITICS EDUCATION RELIGION ANIMALS COMMUNITIES

2. What is the tone of the novel? Give specific examples from the text that help you to understand the tone. Personification is figurative language in which animals, inanimate objects, and abstract ideas are endowed with human characteristics. Park opens the novel with personification as she likens Nya’s big plastic water container to a baby that the girl “cradles . . . in both arms” and suggests that the hot sun is like a cook “already baking the air.” Ask students to identify other examples of personification in the narrative. How does the use of personification help to convey the tone of the novel?

3. The major themes of home and security and escape and freedom are prevelant throughout the novel, in the paragraph in the first chapter Salva is daydreaming about returning home to his loving mother and a bowl of milk after school this is immediately followed by the sound of gunfire as his village is attacked. How does this juxtaposition, a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions are placed side by side for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts, prepare readers for the story that is about to take place and help to convey the above themes?

4. Throughout the novel Park puts some of Salva’s thoughts in italics, starting with Where are we going? Where is my family? When will I see them again? and continuing to One problem at a time– just figure out this one problem. What do these quotes reveal about Salva’s growth and development over the years? How? Be specific.

5. A journey in a work of fiction often operates on a symbolic level. What do Nya’s journeys represent both literally and figuratively? Consider how she changes from the beginning of the story, when she travels eight hours a day to fetch water for her family, to the book’s final scene, in which she expresses her gratitude to Salva for the new well in her village. 6. Rather than state that Salva’s friend Mariel has been killed by a stalking lion, how does Park imply that this tragedy has occurred? Cite specific examples in the text. Why did Park choose this approach?

7. The Lost Boys of Sudan are named after Peter Pan’s cadre of homeless orphaned boys who are threatened by Captain Hook and his pirates. Draw on your knowledge of J. M. Barrie’s classic story, including film and dramatic adaptations, is this is an apt allusion, a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance, why or why not. Explain how this allusion helps to develop the central theme of the novel.

8. Compare and contrast the setting, story line, point of view, and style, including tone, of Salva and Nya’s narratives. SALVA SIMILARITIES NYA SETTING STORYLINE POINT OF VIEW STYLE TONE What accounts for the similarities and differences?