You have been introduced to Blythbury-by-the-Sea and Merton and have heard Chay's story during the pretrial court agrument.  Compare Blythbury-by-the-Sea to the town of Merton. How do these two places complicate the tragedy? Do you think that people would have felt as strongly about prosecution if Chay had been a typical kid from Longfellow Prep?  Should Chay have been charged with leaving the scene of an accident or not? Why?

Black Dog certainly has taken on his own character in the book. What does the arrival of Black Dog do for Henry and his family? How important are pets in your own life? What purpose do they serve people? How do people serve animals?

Make inferences from the text and use contextual evidence to discuss Henry’s relationship with his parents and siblings. How does the accident complicate them? Would you consider Henry and Louisa close? Do you think Henry was close to his brother, despite his cruelty sometimes? How do each of them react to the tragedy?

At the end of Chapter 1 Henry returns home with his parents from the hospital and reflects on the familiarity of their car, the streets of his town, his home, and entering his own room and thinks...“Is it possible for everything to change, and for nothing to change?” (p.12).   Answer the question below in complete sentences and review your answer for spelling, clarity, and repetition before publishing.

How does everything and nothing change for Henry and the Smith family?

Here is a summary of the book Trouble, by Gary Schmidt from Google Books.  Read the summary and respond to the question below.

“Henry Smith’s father told him that if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you.”  But Trouble comes careening down the road one night in the form of a pickup truck that strikes Henry’s older brother, Franklin. In the truck is Chay Chouan, a young Cambodian from Franklin’s preparatory school, and the accident sparks racial tensions in the school—and in the well-established town where Henry’s family has lived for generations. Caught between anger and grief, Henry sets out to do the only thing he can think of: climb Mt. Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine, which he and Franklin were going to climb together. Along with Black Dog, whom Henry has rescued from drowning, and a friend, Henry leaves without his parents’ knowledge. The journey, both exhilarating and dangerous, turns into an odyssey of discovery about himself, his older sister, Louisa, his ancestry, and why one can never escape from Trouble.

Pre-Reading: 
Do you think trouble can be avoided in life? If so, how?  Do people make trouble for themselves or does it find them?