SuitabookBone Quill
Carole E. Barrowman, John Scot Barrowman
- Reading
- Before reading, mention that the story includes supernatural creatures, danger and a high-pressure family dilemma. Afterwards, compare how art, courage and responsibility are portrayed.
- Themes
- Creativity as power: Matt and Emily can bring art to life, enter paintings and use drawings while pursuing the quill. The premise makes artistic ability central to action, but does not establish whether the story chiefly celebrates, questions or limits its power.
- Family loyalty and wider duty: The twins work together while facing a choice between saving their father and saving the world. Family loyalty and public responsibility are placed in tension, but the book's judgement about the eventual choice cannot be established from the premise.
- Boundaries between imagination and danger: Hollow Earth contains demons, devils and imagined creatures, while the Hollow Earth Society seeks a key that could release them. The story presents imagination as connected to both wonder and threat, but the treatment of those possibilities is not yet clear.
- Worth knowing
- The central dilemma may invite discussion of competing responsibilities: caring for one’s family while considering consequences for a much larger group.