What Do You Think?
Questions for Discussion.

Have you ever been around a toddler who keeps asking the question “Why?” Does your teacher call on you in class with questions from your homework? Do your parents ask you questions at the dinner table about your day ? We are always surrounded by questions that need a specific response. But is it possible to have a question with no right answer?

The following questions are about the book you just read. But this is not a quiz! They are designed to help you look at the people, places, and events in the story from different angles. These questions do not have specific answers. Instead, they might make you think of the story in a completely new way.

Think carefully about each question and enjoy discovering more about this classic story.

1. Sherlock Holmes had extraordinary skill in examining details and events to solve cases. How well do you observe details and analyze events to come to your own conclusions? Did it become easier to solve the cases with each story you read?

2. Did you solve any of the mysteries before Holmes? Which ones?

3. Why does Watson tell the stories instead of Holmes? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this? Who would you prefer to tell the stories?

4.Holmes is a man who never seems to let anything slip past him. In “A Scandal in Bohemia,” he obviously underestimated Irene Adler. Why might this have happened? Have you ever underestimated an opponent?

5. Holmes tells Watson, “You see, but you do not observe.” What do you suppose he means by this? Do you see or observe?

6. How does Holmes compare to other detectives you have read about or seen on television?

7. Holmes believed that when all the impossible elements of a crime had been ruled out, whatever was left, even if it seemed unlikely, would lead you to the truth. What incidents or events in the book are good examples of this? Have you found this to be true in your own life?

8. In “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” what were some of the suspicious clues found in the bedroom? Did you recognize these as clues? Were there any false clues that led you to a different solution?

9. Doctors are said to make good criminals. Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?

10. Many of Holmes’s decisions are not quite in accordance with the law. For example, in “The Blue Carbuncle,” Holmes allows the criminal to go free. Can you think of any other times when Holmes does what he wants rather than what the law requires? How do you feel about his actions? What would you do in his place?