The Book Woman's Daughter Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Moonlight Schools and our BookBrowse Review of The Book Woman's Daughter.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Discuss the types of circumstances in which a child, or parent, would ask for a Declaration of Emancipation. Thinking about emancipation and the LeAnn Rimes/Britney Spears issues where the child is earning huge dollars that the parent "manager" is squandering or keeping from the child improperly, what should be put in place to prevent this?
2. Children, especially rural children, were a valuable commodity to families who needed farm labor without having to pay wages. Society continues to be mostly patriarchal, and during the time in which this novel was set, it was the father who could "express" emancipation and consent to his child's emancipation. Discuss patriarchal laws and the role they have played, and continue to play, in shaping women and children's rights and lives.
3. Does prison labor for children still exist like the historical House of Reform in Kentucky? Do children have to work in juvenile facilities as they once did? Should they have to?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Sourcebooks. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.