Arts High School
Incoming 9th Graders
Summer Assignment
Please obtain a copy of the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Answer the 25 questions below using complete, correct sentences and textual evidence to support your answers. Be prepared for a quiz the first week of school!
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
Part I – A Woman on the Street
1. Compare and contrast Jeannette’s apartment with where her mother lives.
Part II – The Desert
2. Mary Walls is upset when nurses give Jeannette chewing gum. Why is this ironic when compared with Mary’s other behaviors?
3. What is “checking out Rex Walls-style”?
4. What is the class castle and what does it symbolize?
5. How do the mother and father react to the death of Charlene? What does it suggest about each?
6. Why didn’t the parents believe in telling their children the Christmas/Santa Claus fantasy?
7. Describe the manner in which Rex teaches Jeannette to swim. What is your opinion of his teaching method?
8. Why does Rex insist on controlling the money even when he isn’t earning it?
9. What happens to Jeannette during the night?
10. What gift does Jeannette want for her tenth birthday?
Part III – Welch
11. Why doesn’t the principal believe Mary’s assertion that her children are gifted?
12. Why doesn’t Jeannette tell her parents about the bullying? What do you think they’d do it they did know?
13. What is illustrated by the feud between the Walls and the Goads? Why do you think the author includes this story?
14. Why does Jeannette love the novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?
15. Why does Jeannette hate the man from child welfare, even though her own parents don’t take proper care of her?
16. Why does Jeannette start working for the school newspaper?
17. What happens to “Oz”?
18. What advice does Jeannette get from the college guidance counselor regarding college? What is her reaction to this advice?
Part IV – New York City
19. Why does Jeannette finally decide to go to college?
20. How do you think the children feel about their parents coming to NYC to bring the family together again?
21. How does Mary manage to blame NYC for her homelessness?
22. Why does Jeannette refuse to buy the family land for her mother?
23. Where does Maureen go? Why is this probably a good decision?
24. How would Rex Walls have preferred to die?
Part V - Thanksgiving
25. What does John tell Jeannette about her car?