Introduction

It's a boring, hardscrabble life for three sisters growing up on a Michigan farm in the throes of the Great Depression. But, when young Nellie, digging for pirate treasure, discovers the tiny blue-black hand of a dead baby, rumors begin to fly. Narrated by Nellie and her two older sisters, the story follows the girls as they encounter a patchwork of threatening circumstances and take it upon themselves to solve the mystery.

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Excerpt

“There he stood, a large ugly man wearing a dirty brown hunting jacket. He held a knife and slid it from hand to hand. ‘You say anything ‘bout seeing me, little girl, and you’ll be disappearing,’ he growled. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay outa the woods. There’s lots of bad stuff back there. Bad things for little kids. Otherwise you choose your torture.’ He laughed out loud, an ugly, low-pitched chuckle.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think the author titled the book Threads? What kinds of threads are represented in the book? What threads bind the three sisters? What isolates them? ?
2. The book is set in 1934. How important is that year to the characters and the social context? How are the characters both insulated from and exposed to the vagaries of the Great Depression? ?
3.How do you react to hearing the same story from one, two, or three points of view? Does the tedium of farm life portrayed in the book differ with each of the three sisters? ?
4.Describe the personalities of the three sisters. Would you be able to discern which character is speaking if she weren’t named in the chapter heading? Is any one of the three sisters portrayed as more likable? More intelligent? More mature? More likely to gain material success? ?
5. How do you react to Ma and Pa? What are their strengths and flaws? How representative are they of Midwest farmers of the 1930s? ?
6. What is your reaction to Flora’s goal of becoming a farm wife at age seventeen? Discuss the concept of teenagers then and now. ?
7.Nellie observes that you need to have good neighbors in order to be successful farmers. How is this portrayed? ?
8. Do you believe that the author revealed too much or too little regarding some of the characters, e.g., Mrs. Vandenberg, Mr. Hendrik, Mr. Goldberg? ?
9.What aspects of life in rural America changed from 1934 to 1974, e.g, finding arrowheads, living entirely off the land, re-using everything including rags. ?
10. What aspects of the sisters’ childhood personalities do we continue to see reflected as adults in 1974. How do you react to their life stories? Why do you think the author chose 1974 as the year to end the book? ?

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