Our Shared Shelf discussion

Here's a few questions to get our discussion started! Feel free to answer any one of these or all of them.

1) What is the connection between dragoning and the feminine? Why are they considered taboo topics?

2) Barnhill poses the theme of abandonment with Aunt Marla, Mother (Bertha) and Father. Abandoning your ideals, your self, your loves, and your family. In your opinion (in this story or real life) which is the worst form of abandonment?

3) Consider the antiquated stigma of women in education: How does the study of mathematics and science intertwine in the story? Why is the pursuit of education crucial for Alex, Alex’s mother, and Marla?

4) What do you think Barnhill is trying to say about the fact that Alex never dragons?

5) The Greek myth of Tithonus is revisited a few times throughout the story. Why is it significant? Discuss the metaphor of memory, love, and selfishness within the poem.

6) “Anger is a funny thing. And it does funny things to us if we keep it inside. I encourage you to consider a question. Who benefits, my dear, when you force yourself to not feel angry?" This was asked to Alex, but how would you answer?

7) How would that question change if we substitute "silence" for "anger"? (Silence is a funny thing. And it does funny things to us if we keep it inside. I encourage you to consider a question. Who benefits, my dear, when you force yourself to be silent?")

8) Alex does an admirable job keeping in her temper with her father, her school teacher, and principal? Do you agree or disagree? Why do you think she was able to finally explode at the head librarian and her sister? How are those two moments connected?

9) Take this intersectionally, did the author leave anyone out? What would dragoning look from their perspective?

10) In what ways is or is not this book feminist?

11) How will you take up space in 2025?

12) Free Space! This is by far not all that we can discuss about this book. so use this number to ask the group a question of your own.

Using the either silence or anger: Remaining silent in the moment permits us to be receptive to the whole situation and provides opportunity for us to think before we speak. It allows us to consider perspective. So many regretful things said in anger would not have become truths if only one had been silent. Therefore, it benefits all parties involved. That being said, holding it and pushing it into a hidden corner of the mind indefinitely is not beneficial.

Barnhill poses the theme of abandonment with Aunt Marla, Mother (Bertha) and Father. Abandoning your ideals, your self, your loves, and your family. In your opinion (in this story or real life) which is the worst form of abandonment?

Ideals and sense of self are the same, if you abandon one you abandon the other. As for loves or family, sometimes if they are not the best you have to walk away.

Aunt Marla was not in a happy marriage and had acquiesced to her sister's demands for years. As a grown woman who has faced divorce, sometimes walking away is the only thing you can do to preserve your sanity and self. It hurts for the children, but I think her sister understood even though they had the opposite philosophies.

3) Consider the antiquated stigma of women in education: How does the study of mathematics and science intertwine in the story? Why is the pursuit of education crucial for Alex, Alex’s mother, and Marla?

Math is logical, and it has this connotation of being more masculine or that only men are good at it (despite the likes of Grace Hopper, Shakuntala Devi, Hedy Lamar or Katherine Johnson to name a few). So it is not allowed or approved by the male protagonists. And in this way it is connected to freedom.

Freedom that has nothing to do with how you act or dress (as Marla represents) but freedom of insight and freedom of understanding that cannot be taken away once understood.

4) What do you think Barnhill is trying to say about the fact that Alex never dragons? I was actually so very happy that she doesn't nor that she was the mostest bestest dragon that ever dragoned, for this was not the tale of the unique child savior, but rather a tale of freedom. And specifically, the freedom of choice. To determine your own way of living, of loving, of creating, without someone else dictating your choice to you, or worse, restricting what you can and cannot be.

6/7 are the same questions. For if you are not angry, you are silent. You are tacitly acquiescing to their demands without so much as a bat of the lashes.

8) Alex does an admirable job keeping in her temper with her father, her school teacher, and principal? Do you agree or disagree? Why do you think she was able to finally explode at the head librarian and her sister? How are those two moments connected?

Because the Librarian was a woman.

And that either made:
- her safer to react to as she wouldn't follow up with violence or stripping her of food / shelter / her place / etc.
- her motherly replacement figure whom Alex could project all of anger/ resentment / love/ confusion /sense of abandonment from her aunt and her mother on to this nurturing mother figure in a way she couldn't on anyone else.

9) Take this intersectionally, did the author leave anyone out? What would dragoning look from their perspective? Sure was one or two dimensional; would have liked some other perspectives especially from other communities.

4) What do you think Barnhill is trying to say about the fact that Alex never dragons?

I thought about this a lot throughout the book. It felt like what she was "trying to say" changed as Alex acknowledged/learned/debated this question herself.

I think there's something about choice and acceptance--of both yourself and of others here. I also think there's a message about how everyone is needed, no matter who you are and what you choose. We need people to speak out, some to work behind the scenes, loud and quiet, at all levels and in all spaces. At home, at work, school, community centers, politics, war. When we all work together toward the same goal, we are together in the way our society needs.

One thing I wondered is why Alex didn't dragon when young. I think, like her mother, she recognized that someone else needed her. That tied her to staying human (see: the knots her mother continually tied and Alex wore as a teen/adult), but I think the fear and obedience embedded in her psyche kept dragoning at bay too. While learning herself, she didn't feel like she had the freedom to choose. That's why it's so important that she later gives Beatrice the freedom to choose--it's what she never had.