READERS GUIDE

Reader’s Guide
Fireflies in Winter by Eleanor Shearer
Discussion Questions:

1.   Fireflies in Winter is structured around the seasons of the year. Did you like this structure? How did you feel it shaped the story?

2.   How are Cora and Agnes different and how are they similar in their attitudes to life and love? Do you think they change each other over the course of the book? How?

3.   The novel includes five chapters from the points of view of characters other than Cora or Agnes, like Thursday and Montague James. Which of these were your favorite? What did you feel like these perspectives added to the book?

4.   Cora does not have any biological family in the novel, but she is close with Leah and Benjamin and was close to Elsy back in Jamaica. What did you make of these relationships? What kind of love was expressed within them?

5.   In the novel, love is described as “a small word with so many meanings. It is a blanket over every kind of fondness.” How do different forms of love feature in the novel? Did particular forms and expressions of love resonate with you? Why?

6.   The natural world is an important setting in this story, and over the course of the book Cora learns more about the wilderness, its plants and animals. What did you make of the setting? Why do you think the story takes place in the setting that it does?

7.   What aspects of survival does the novel explore?

8.   What role do animals play in the story?

9.   Did you learn anything new about slavery from this book? How do the different characters think about slavery and freedom?

10. Cora and the other Maroons begin the novel in exile from Jamaica. Agnes has come from the American South and now lives in the forest. And many Black Loyalists have, before the beginning of the book, moved to Freetown in Sierra Leone. What do you think this story says about what it means to find home?