Study guide: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
I. "A Woman on the Street" pgs. 3-5 1. Who is the "woman on the street" after whom the section is named?
2. What does the narrator see out of the window of a taxi when she is on her way to a party?
3. When the narrator returns to her apartment after seeing the "woman on the street", how does she feel when she looks around her apartment and sees all her beautiful things?
Why does she feel this way?
4. When the narrator meets her mother at a Chinese restaurant, she asks her mother what she could do to help her, what is her mother's reply?
5. What type of person is Jeannette?
6. What is significant about the last line "'Just tell the truth,' Mom said. 'That's simple enough'" (5)?
II. "The Desert" pgs. 9-125 7. What is the three year old author doing when the section begins?
8. What does the narrator try for the first time while in the hospital? What does her mother think of it?
9. For how long is Jeannette in the hospital?
10. What is the irony in Jeannette's father's words "You don't have to worry anymore baby. You're safe now." when he is taking her from the hospital without her doctor's permission?
11. With what does Jeannette become fascinated after she comes home from the hospital?
12. What happened to the family cat, Quixote?
13. When the family has to get out of town quickly, what does Jeannette's dad calls it?
14. With what unusual item did Jeannette's father once fix a TV?
15. From where does the title of the book come?
16. Who is Mary Charlene?
17. What does Rex's reaction to Mary Charlene's death tell you about his character? Explain.
18. What is the funny term that Rex uses for Jeannette's nose after she falls out of the family car and injures herself on the side of the road?
19. What strange gift does Rex give to his children on year for Christmas when money is tight?
20. In Battle Mountain, Jeannette started a collection of what?
21. In Battle Mountain, Jeannette and her brother, Brian, played in a place they called "the woods", what was it really?
22. What was the family's ugliest pet?
23. In what way did the Walls family have the concept of the food chain being illustrated right in their own home?
24. After a big fight between her parents, Jeannette's mother gets a job as a _________________?
25. What was the name of the neighborhood where the Walls family lived in Battle Mountain?
26. Who is the boy with the lop-sided head who wants to be Jeannette's boyfriend.
27. Why does the Walls family have to "do the skedaddle" from Battle Mountain?
28. What unexpected news does Jeannette receive from Rose Mary in the car on the way to Phoenix?
29. What is Rex's nickname for Jeannette? Why? (After you have finished the book come back to this question and explain why this nickname is very appropriate for Jeannette considering all that she has experienced in her life. ) 30. What does Jeannette ask her dad...
