'The Plentiful Darkness' Book Club: Day 3

By: OwlCrate Jr Photo By: @chacha_reads

Welcome back, friends, to Day 3 of our book club read-along for OwlCrate Jr's August book, The Plentiful Darkness by Heather Kassner! 

Just a reminder that this will be a SPOILER discussion for Chapters 19 - 28 of The Plentiful Darkness, so make sure you read these chapters before continuing.

Discussion questions are listed below, and anyone who participates in the comments will be entered to win a free OwlCrate Jr box! We’ll be selecting four winners this time around, so make sure you join in for every session!


The story so far...

The next morning (or what she assumes was morning), Rooney wakes up desperately hungry. Luckily, Devin has some grimace fruit (which makes you grimace to look at but thankfully tastes nice). The following night, upon waking, Rooney notices something impossible. Moonlight shining above the trees! She, Trick and Devin go to investigate and find Sorka with the magician.

The magician is suspended by a thin thread of moonlight and tells Sorka that she became worried when she didn’t come to the mirror. She also tells her that the darkness is where Sorka belongs. After the magician uses her magic and the moonlight to leave through the ceiling of darkness, Sorka flees. Trick and Devin try to grab the remaining moonlight like the magician did, but Rooney insists they need to help the other children escape as well. Trick thinks there is enough moonlight to get Devin out and back to her parents, but she refuses. A nice side to Trick, what a welcome surpirse! Suddenly around them the forest seems to change, silver flowers falling from the trees like giant snowflakes. When the flowers hit their skin they are ice cold. Noticing a flickering blue light in the distance the three sneak up on Sorka who seems to be trying to use the lunar mirrors to damage the darkness, but all that happens is that the moonlight gets deflected. The air turns icey cold and after discovering the frozen Monty on the ground the three half frozen kids flee to the summer part of the forest. Bring on the heat!

Deciding to explore summer while soaking up the heat, they come upon a lighthouse, and at the top use the small amount of moonlight Devin has left to light it. Unfortunately this cause flowers on the vines covering the lighthouse to come to life like moths, and they are sharp as blades! The flower-like-moths seem determined to get into their mouths—gross! Unable to put the light out, the kids flee the tower only to come to more of the creatures/flowers outside. They flee away from summer back into the forest, where the cold stops the moths from following further. Once again defeated, they head back to the clearing where they decide that they need to steal their lunar mirrors back from Sorka.

They hear a sudden crack and the children rush into the woods, Sorka in the lead. Devin and Trick stay behind to try to recover the stolen mirrors. The other children in the forest sing their creepy song to welcome another child into the plentiful darkness. Falling fast, the trees bend to catch the new child and turn their branches into a slide. The girl is none of than Bridget, one of the other roughhouse boys. Although Bridget is unhappy about it, the other children march her back to the clearing. There, Devin and Trick reveal they weren't able to find the mirrors. To Rooney's distaste, Trick is excited to see Bridget. Forcing Bridget to appear before her throne, Sorka asks what she has for her. After Bridget simply yells for Trick, Sorka steals Bridget's lunar mirror from her pocket. When Bridget seems unbothered by this, Sorka tosses the mirror into a pile of other random objects. Seemingly done with Bridget's defiance, Sorka makes a piece of silk bind Bridget's leg and heads into the forest with the other children to play hide and seek. Although afraid of the Monty, Bridget allows it to bite her free from the silk, and to their horror she produces a knife which she throws end over end at the ground.

Trick to the rescue! Trick lunges forward and using his coat is able to stop the knife from puncturing the silk. Phew! After the close call, it comes out that the roughhouse boys never wanted to be Rooney's enemy and that Trick stole her mirror because he wanted her to come after him. All of a sudden the darkness didn't feel quite so dark. They hatch a plan to send the Monty to get Bridget's mirror and then busy themselves picking grimace fruit while the rat pulls off the heist. Unfortunately, the Monty isn't the brightest rat and several times brings back objects that aren't the lunar mirror before finally bringing back a locket, which Sorka immediately notices and reacts very angrily to. It turns out the locket is also a lunar mirror and Sorka tells them that it used to contain stardust! Deciding to come to a sort of truce, Rooney offers Sorka the locket back and Sorka tells them that all she wants to do is see the stars from above the ground.

 

Finally, maybe a bit of hope for our heroes? I can't wait to find out what happens in the last section of the book!


Questions:

1. Why do you think the locket no longer contains stardust? And how do you think it was caught in the first place?
2. Why do you think the other children look up to Sorka so much?
3. Why do you think the flowers-like-moths were so drawn to the children?
4. Do you think Sorka will now team up with the other kids?
5. What are you predictions for how the book is going to end?


    See you again on Friday as we discuss Chapters 29 - 37[End]!

    Pick up your August 'Moonlight & Stardust' box and your signed exclusive copy of The Plentiful Darkness in the OwlCrate Jr Shop!