Each Tiny Spark

Unpack the relationship between Emilia and Clarissa. How are they antagonists? How does Clarissa help and hurt Emilia? Do you predict that the relationship can grow, and if so, what must happen in order for it to be a success?

In the book, Emilia and the students have to make tourism guides for Merryville. Write a tourism guide for your community, taking Emilia’s guide as a roadmap, and explain what you uncovered. Where and how does it overlap with Merryville?

Why does Cartaya omit details about Toni’s deployment, and what does this omission allow for in Toni’s character and in Emilia’s? How might Toni’s identity as a Marine compel Emilia to face unflattering truths?

Discuss how ADHD impacts Emilia. What measures do she and her loved ones take to ensure it does not control her life and stigmatize her? How does Cartaya ensure that the main character is not reduced to a neurodevelopmental condition and instead give Emilia a full, complex personality?

How does the title link to the theme of Accepting All Parts of a Person’s Identity? How do “sparks” represent the myriad lights that animate a person?

Mr. Richt praises Emilia’s tourism guide proposal, as it connects “history with present-day policies” (183). Clarify the other connections Emilia makes. How does she link the 1996 Olympics to immigration to voting laws to redistricting, and what steps did she take to get there?

Mr. Richt doesn’t want the students to use the internet for their tourism guides. How does the injunction against the internet put Emilia in the library and on a path toward activism? What are the differences between researching on the internet and researching in a material place?

Discuss the motif of gender and how Cartaya’s story upends gender norms. How does Emilia defy tropes about girls? How does Abuela defy and reinforce sexist standards? How does Sue redefine expectations toward mothers?