• If you were Lucy’s best friend in the story, “There’s a Name for this Feeling,” could you explain to her family why Lucy can’t accept the breakup? What advice could you offer to help Lucy cope with Rodrigo’s rejection?
• Both “Raymond’s Fireworks” and “Trajectory” involve an incident with fireworks on New Year’s Eve as the focal point of the plot. What is the attraction to fireworks when everyone knows they are illegal in city limits? Discuss the role of friendship in both stories.
• “Trajectory” and “A Small Red Box” present tragic circumstances for both main characters. Evaluate how each character copes with the sad events. How does Ruben’s decision for his children make you feel? How and why does the clown’s sympathy (rather than her mother) help Inez? Do you think Inez ever opens the small red box? Why or why not?
• “My Twisted Tongue” presents a young girl having difficulty speaking two languages well. Have you ever felt your tongue gets “twisted” in speaking another language? What role does the flashback scene play in understanding the decisions made by the characters?
• “Agapito” is a short-short story about a boy and his obsession. Is there a food you love to the point of an obsession? How do the repetition of words and the description of simple actions create conflict and reveal character?
• “A Touch of Wax” is told as a dramatic monologue. Are you familiar with this style of storytelling? Have you read other stories told in this style? Identify the main characters and the way each one is revealed through the narrator’s defense of her actions.
• “The Naked Woman on Poplar Street” is a mystery story about a search. What makes this search such an important one for Camo and his friends? What’s at stake? What do you think about their decision to keep silent after they all see her? How do various themes of “teamwork” develop in this story?
• “Brake and Shift” and “Crooked Stitches” share a common theme. Describe the ways Joaquín and Amanda struggle to accept the changes in their grandmothers. How do their families also struggle? Do you know someone in this situation, or do you have an elderly relative that creates worry and concern in your family? What advice or help can you provide?
• At the end of “Brake and Shift” and “Crooked Stitches” both Amanda and Joaquín make an important realization. Can you predict what happens next in their relationships with their grandmothers? Although it might be simple to say “They’ll make time to spend with their grandmothers,” what realities in a teenager’s life make a simple solution difficult?
• What is your impression of the old woman in “The Naked Woman on Poplar Street”? Does a comparison with the elderly characters in “Brake and Shift” and “Crooked Stitches” make a difference in the way you think about her?
• In the first story, Lucy says “There’s a name for this feeling of two things happening, good and bad.” In each story identify some of the “two things happening, good and bad” for the main characters. Can you put a “name” to the feelings of the different characters as they discover the good and bad in what happens to them?