Yesterday afternoon I visited Laurentian Christian School in Kitchener, Ontario, and did a reading from my novel Grounded. It was fun to be back in the classroom since it has been some time since I retired. The students were engaging and made some interesting comments. One of these came up when we were talking about the Rosa Parks story and a student brought up the incident of the doctor being dragged off the United Airlines plane against his wishes.
We talked about what being grounded means to them and how it is has a slightly different meaning in the story because the kids in the story didn’t do anything wrong to deserve being grounded.
We also discussed other possible meanings the word ‘grounded’ can have. For example, a plane being grounded due to inclement weather, and being rooted or grounded in your faith.
After establishing that Billy is a bit of a troublemaker, I left the children wondering at the end of Chapter 3 what Marie’s comment about ‘just the beginning of BIG trouble’ might mean. If you are wondering, you might want to find out too. If so, read my book, Grounded.