• Ask students about a time they might have had to keep a difficult promise. Why was it hard? What are the choices they have to make—to stay true to the promise versus disappointing or making someone they care about angry? Would it be difficult to keep a promise that they were afraid of or that required them to give something up? Which choice did or would they make?
• Invite students to discuss times when they may have thought they understood what someone else wanted, only to find out that the person wanted something entirely different. Have they ever described something they wanted to another person only to get something very different? Discuss.
• Discuss times when tasks required of students were or are more challenging than they expected. Did they feel they could accomplish those tasks or did it make them nervous? What are some ways to get past those worries?
• Pose these questions to students for a general discussion: Have you ever taken a long journey that did not turn out exactly as planned? What was supposed to happen that didn’t? What happened instead?
Discussion Questions
The discussion questions below correlate to the following Common Core State Standards: (SL.4-9.1, 2, 3, 4) (RL.4-9.1, 2, 3) (RH.4-8.6)
• Different people want Ven to do different things for them. Amariel expects Ven to come explore the sea with her. Char wants Ven to refuse Amariel’s demand and stay on land. The Cormorant wants Ven to go to the Summer Festival and get some guidance about the attack on the Gated City from the Sea King. Why does Ven decide to do or not do what each of these people expect of him?
• The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme series is what the publisher refers to as “faux nonfiction.” This means that while Ven is called the author of the journals, the actual author is pretending that Ven existed in the real world. Why would a writer put part of the story, the “journal” pages, in Ven’s voice? How is Ven’s voice different from the third-person narrator’s voice?
• Merrows, Sea-Lirin, the Epona, and the Vila are all human-like creatures of the sea. How are they alike and how are they different?
• Ven gets redirected several times in the course of the book. Do you think that each time someone changes his original plan, it confuses and frustrates him, or do you think it leads him in better directions in finding out the purpose of his journey by the end, as Madame Sharra tells him must happen?
• In Chapter 18, the worst fight to ever happen between Ven and Char takes place. What do you think would have happened if the Vila had not attacked Char at that moment?
• At various parts of the story, different characters have to apologize in some way for another character’s presence or behavior. List some examples. List some apologies that work and some that do not.
• When Coreon introduces Spicegar to his new friends, each of their expectations about this sea dragon turn out to be wrong. How does each person handle being incorrect? How does his or her opinion of Spicegar change? In your opinion, what does Spicegar think of each of the children?
• Make a list of all the mistakes Ven and Char make in the sea. Then make a list of all the positive outcomes that came of them.
• Do you think Ven is responsible for the death of the herring in the herring ball? Or do you agree with Amariel that what he called “terrible,” most people would call “lunch”?
• Do you think the Cormorant is a good or bad person? Why? When he sends the children on their mission to the Summer Festival, how does Coreon decide that the Cormorant will not be guided by the Sea King’s answer? Is he right?
• From the very beginning, Ven has had the power to undo any moment of time that he wanted if he thought things had gone too far. Should he have? Which moments? Have you ever wished you had that power, and if you did, when would you have used it?
• The book introduces the concept of thrum, talking underwater by way of thoughts. How does thrum make the action of the book easier? If there was no thrum, how do you think communication would have happened?
• In The Tree of Water, we see words that mean one thing to one person and something different to another. Ven explains that he has heard both his mother and Amariel use the word “brazen.” To his mother, the word is negative, meaning something inappropriate or pushy. To Amariel, it is a positive word, meaning brave and proud. Do you know of any words that mean different things to different people?
• The friends learn things in each of the different realms they travel through. What does the setting of each place they go to—the kelp forest, the Lirin-mer Drowning Cave, the skelligs, the Sea Desert, the Festival grounds, Lancel’s lair of lost ships, the Abyss with the soul cages, the Trenches—have to do with what they learn there? How does each place limit or encourage what they can do?
• What does Teel the hippocampus have in common with Ven? List physical characteristics, how they treat the people they care about, and their reasons for being with Amariel.
• How much of Ven’s journey would you have been willing to undertake? At what point would you have stopped, or would you have finished the journey as he and Char did? Why?
• How does the author make you like Amariel even though she is obnoxious? The Sea King does not particularly like the Sea Queen—why? How is humor used in this scene?
Writing and Research Activities
The writing and research activities below correlate to the following Common Core State Standards: (L.4-8.4) (RL.5-6.5) (RL.4-9.6) (RL.4-9.7) (W.4-9.2, 7)
• In the kelp forest where the children meet Spicegar the sea dragon, they come upon the stump of a giant oak tree, a kind of tree that grows on land, not under the water like kelp. Because Spicegar is annoyed, Ven and his friends are asked to leave, and they do not get a chance for him to tell them the story of that tree. Pretend that you are Spicegar, and are not as offended as he was. Write a tale telling the story of the giant oak tree. Why it is under the water, and what happened to it? Illustrate your story.
• The major places to which Ven and his friends travel in The Tree of Water are mostly known as realms, and they correspond to the actual zones of the sea. Look up the zones of the sea (Sunlit, Twilight, Midnight, etc) and make a chart of them. Write words or draw pictures of some of the plants and creatures that can be found in those zones.
• Create a PowerPoint or other multimedia presentation showing the actual creatures, plants, and formations in the sea that you found most interesting in The Tree of Water. Share that presentation as a report on magic hiding in plain sight to your class, explaining what you think is most magical or interesting about them.
• If you could be any one of the people or any type of creature in The Tree of Water, who or what would you be? Write a one-page account telling the story of your birthday as that person or creature, and what you did to celebrate it.
• Not all of Ven’s diary entries survived. Find a place in the book where there is narration about something that happened, and write Ven’s account of it, complete with illustrations. Notice that each of Ven’s illustrations in the book are signed, and remember to do that on your illustrations as well.
• Skelligs are actual geological formations off the coast of Ireland. Research the skelligs, and then build your own skellig out of modeling clay or papier-mâché. Make birds, animals, and structures (like the beehive huts on Skellig Michael in Ireland) that you want on your own skellig. Write a poem about your own mountain island.
• Imagine Ven is a travel agent, writing about the places he has been for other people who want to explore them. Make an itinerary (look this up if you don’t know the word) in list form with comments about the places he went, in order (reference the book). Have him use a five-star rating system (1 being awful, 5 being wonderful) to rate each of these places. Write the comments as if you are Ven.
• Fantasy as a genre is supposed to make you use your imagination to envision places that do not exist. Of all the places or creatures in The Tree of Water, which place, creature, or thing was, in your opinion, the most beautiful? The
most interesting? The scariest? Draw three pictures depicting each of those places, creatures or things.
• Many times Ven and his friends are reminded that “everything in the sea is food for something else, and the sea is always hungry.” Look up what a food chain is, and make one, using the creatures and plants from Ven’s world.
• In Ven’s world, there are five elements—earth, air, fire, water, and ether—that are the basis of all life and all magic, that need to be brought together to make a miracle. Research the origin of these five elements in ancient Greece. If you were forming a world of your own, what would your elements be? Make a poster illustrating the ones from Ven’s world and contrast them with the ones from you own world. Which would be the same?
• Much of the “magic hiding in plain sight” in the sea is real. Many of the sea creatures, such as the sea dragon, the sunflower starfish, and the green sea slug all exist in our world. How does the author blend actual scientific information about existing creatures with those that are made up? Which beings and animals do you think really exist or once existed, and which do you think are imaginary? Make a list of creatures or parts of the sea you think might be real, and look them up online to see if you are right.
• Turn one of the scenes in The Tree of Water into a play. Get some friends who have also read it to act out the parts with you. Present the play to your class.
FROM STARSCAPE BOOKS
The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme
by Elizabeth Haydon
The Floating Island
The Thief Queen’s Daughter
The Dragon’s Lair
The Tree of Water
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE TREE OF WATER
Copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Haydon
Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Brandon Dorman
The Floating Island excerpt copyright © 2006 by Elizabeth Haydon
Reader’s Guide copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Haydon
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Mike Heath
Endpaper map by Ed Gaszi
A Starscape Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2059-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6367-5 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466863675
First Edition: October 2014
Visit us online at venpolypheme.com to download a free, Common Core compatible curriculum based on The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme.
tor-forge.com/starscape
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