1. Who is participating in the Lemonade War? What are they trying to do?
2. How does Evan seem to be doing in school? Use the text to support your answer.
3. What have you discovered about Jessie so far?
4. On pages 27 and 28, we read about how Evan struggles to solve the math problem. How does Evan solve the problem?
5. Identify two or more phrases in the text that help explain why Evan’s heart jumps
when he solves the division problem.
6. Why does Officer Ken allow Jessie to keep her lemonade stand open, but not Evan?
7. What does Evan’s decision to walk all the way to the town center tell you about him?
8. How doe the reader know Evan is tempted to buy some ice cream?
9. Recall that Evan was quite worried at the beginning of the chapter. How do his feelings then compare to how he feels at the end of the chapter.
10. What are two significant moments in the story?
11. How does Evan decide where to sell his lemonade?
12. What do we learn about Evan’s relationship with his sister during his conversation with Officier Ken?
Try to have students remember to show their evidence and provide examples.
The Case of the Gasping GarbageChapter 1
1. Why does Gabby call Drake on the telephone instead of Frisco?
2. What do you know about Drake’s motivations so far?
3. How do Drake’s motivations contribute to the sequence of events in Chapter 1?
4. What do you know about Nell’s motivations so far?
5. How do Nell’s motivations contribute to the sequence of events?
Chapter 2
6. How do Drake and Nell conduct their investigation?
7. What do you know about how Drake’s parents feel about Drake’s experiments?
8. What does the fact that Nell and Drake stay up so late tell you about them?
Chapter 3
9. What do you know about Drake so far? Show where the text says so.
10. What do you know about Nell so far? Show where the text says so.
11. What problem do Drake and Nell identify in Chapter 3?
Chapter 4
12. How does Nell encourage the community to save the frogs. Show your evidence.
13. What clues are given in the text that let readers know Drake’s and Nell’s efforts in
Chapter 3 don’t work?
14. What is the first step Drake takes to help Nell fix this problem?
15. How does the experiment on pages 68-69 relate to the story? How would the story be different if the experiment was included in the chapters?
Chapter 5
16. How do Nell and Drake feel about James Frisco?
17. What is Nell doing at the beginning of the chapter?
18. How do Drake’s actions contribute to the sequence of events?
19. Based on your knowledge of Drake and Nell so far, what trait can you name that
they both have?
20. Bades on what you know about Drake and Nell, do you think they’ll solve their
case in Chapter 5? Why or why not?
Chapter 6
21. How are Professor Fossey and Nell alike?
22. Why does Nell visit her mother? Show me where the text says so.
23. Why are there so many people around the truck?
24. Why doesn’t Nell’s mother give her the answer to the truck problem?
Chapter 7
25. What scientific breakthrough is Drake about to discover as the chapter begins?
26. Study the second paragraph on page 44. What effect do the parentheses have on what the narrator is telling us?
27. Describe the picture you have of Lilly Crump. Base your answer on the story’s dialogue and what the narrator says about her.
28. From whose point of view is this chapter told? Use specific sentences or passages form the text to support your answer.
Chapter 8
29. What text feature does the author use to show how tiny Lilly Crump is?
30. Page 57 shows a scribbling from Drake’s lab notebook. How does the statement “Received on fish with buggy eyes as payment-MUST RETURN in one week” build on information learned at the beginning of the chapter? What does this payment reveal about Lilly’s character?
Thunder Cake
1. How much time do Grandma and her granddaughter have to bake a real Thunder
Cake?
2. Where does the story take place? What details does the story give about this place?
3. Who is telling the story and who is the other character? Who do you know?
4. What do the picture on page 5 and text on pages 8-9 tell about how the granddaughter feels about thunderstorms?
5. What does the girl do while Grandma mixes the cake batter?
6. What do you know about the narrator in the beginning of the story? How does the narrator change by the end of the story?
7. How does the writer begin the sequence of events that leads to the change in the narrator? How do you know? Show where the text says so.
8. How does Grandma help the narrator overcome her fear of thunderstorms? Use details from the text to support your answer.
9. How do you know that Grandma has made Thunder Cake before?
10. What is the main character’s problem at the beginning of the story? What does the solution appear to be?
11. Read page 7. Find one or more places in the text that lead to this solution. Explain your answer.
12. Consider what the main character goes through to solve her problem. How are those accomplishments a truer reflection of the solution to her problem than what appears to be the solution?