A
  D I S C U S S I O N
  G U I D E
Will Sparrow’s Road
by KAREN CUSHMAN
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About
 the
 Author
Karen Cushman’s acclaimed historical novels include
Catherine, Called Birdy, a Newbery Honor book, and
The Midwife’s Apprentice, which received the Newbery
Medal. She lives on Vashon Island in Washington
State. Visit her website at www.karencushmanbooks.
com.
About
 the
 Book
In his thirteenth year, Will Sparrow, liar and thief,
becomes a runaway. On the road, he encounters a
series of con artists—a pickpocket, a tooth puller,
a pig trainer, a conjurer—and learns that others are
more adept than he at lying and thieving. Then he
reluctantly joins a traveling troupe of “oddities,”
including a dwarf and a cat-faced girl, holding
himself apart from the “monsters” and resolving
to be on guard against further deceptions. At last
Will is forced to understand that appearances
are misleading and that he has been his own
worst deceiver. The rowdy world of market fairs
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in Elizabethan England is the colorful backdrop
for the Newbery medalist Cushman’s new comic
masterpiece.
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Readers are likely to be unfamiliar with some of
the terms used in the text. Review the meanings of
the following words before beginning the book:
agog, ague, apoplexy, apothecary, boisterous, changeling,
consternation, gobsmacked, guileless, hornbook, jerkin,
legerdemain, odious, prestidigitation, purloined, putrid,
remunerate, roistering, thatch, tambour, wheyface.
Will Sparrow lives in a time when most people are
superstitious, and references to commonly held
superstitions appear throughout the story. Ask
readers to record all the superstitions they see in
the story and then compare lists when they have
finished reading the novel. Ask readers to research
the details of each superstition and share their
findings.
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Describe Will’s situation at the beginning of the
story.
Why does Will run away from the innkeeper?
Why is Will so upset about losing the button from
his shirt?
How is Will outsmarted by Nell Liftpurse?
What are the reasons for Will’s views on women?
What proposition does Doctor Hieronymus
Munster offer Will? How is Doctor Munster
revealed to be a fraud?
Who are some of the people who share the road
with Will? What might these people be called
today?
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  D I S C U S S I O N
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Will Sparrow’s Road
by KAREN CUSHMAN
How is Will able to convince the fat man that he
was not trying to steal his purse?
Who is Tobias of Frogenhall and what does he do?
What offer does he make to Will?
What does Will think when he sees the children
in the crowd begging? Is there any real difference
between him and the children?
What are the “oddities and prodigies” Will sees in
the wonder room?
How does Will meet the Porcine Duchess?
Greymalkin is an oddity described as “half wild cat
and half human” (73). Explain to readers the literary
significance of the character’s name. One of the
witches in Macbeth has a familiar named Greymalkin.
The First Witch says “I come Graymalkin” in act 1,
scene 1. Explain to readers that in Will Sparrow’s
time, a common belief was that Satan sent witches’
spirits to help them carry out evildoings. These
spirits took animal form, often that of a cat.
When talking about Greymalkin and Fitz, Tidball
tells Will: “God made them as they are for a
purpose” (83). What does he say is their purpose?
What does Will think of this?
What does Will mistake for a fire in the stall?
How did Benjamin go blind and become a juggler?
Why does Greymalkin give herself the name Grace
Wyse?
How does Will feel about Greymalkin?
What do you think Grace is trying to tell Will when
she says to him, “Even a sparrow sometime alights”?
(141)
What does Tidball do to Grace that shocks Will?
What does Grace reveal about her arrangement with
Tidball? How is it similar to Will’s situation with the
innkeeper?
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Why does Grace want to bury the mermaid baby?
Why does Will return the stolen shears?
What surprising thing does Fitz do for Will?
How does Will’s reaction to Samuel’s news that he
and the Duchess are leaving reflect a change in him?
What makes Will decide to help Grace bury the
mermaid baby?
What about Grace surprises Will?
What does Will realize about Fitz and Tidball?
What do you think Benjamin means when he tells Will,
“Learn how to juggle life”? (207)
In what way is the end of the story a beginning?
In what ways does Will change in the course of the story?
What do you think will become of Will and Grace?
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Karen Cushman writes in the author’s note that
Grace Wyse’s oddity is inspired by Antoinetta
Gonzales, a real person who had a rare genetic
condition called hypertrichosis. Have readers use
print and electronic resources to research Antoinetta
Gonzales and this condition.
Master Tidball dreams of attending the famous
Bartlemas Fair, also known as Bartholomew Fair. The
diarist Samuel Pepys describes the fair in several
entries. His diaries are available at www.pepysdiary.
com. Use the search term “Bartholomew Fair” to
locate entries and read them aloud to your students.
The traditional ballads Will Sparrow sings in the
novel are “Barbra Allen,” “Greensleeves,” “Tomorrow
the Fox Will Come to Town,” “We Be Soldiers
Three,” and “The Wee Wee Man.” Find recordings
of traditional and modern interpretations of these
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  D I S C U S S I O N
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Will Sparrow’s Road
by KAREN CUSHMAN

ballads and share them with students. Discuss with Thomas, Jane Resh. The Counterfeit Princess. Clarion,
students the themes of these ballads. 2005.
The story contains references to plague and the Woelfle, Gretchen. All the World’s a Stage: A Novel in
pox. Benjamin says the pox took his sight, and Fitz Five Acts. Holiday House, 2011.
curses someone with “A pox on you.” Plague refers
to bubonic plague. An epidemic known as the Great
Plague (1664–66) was the last major outbreak of the
disease in England. Samuel Pepys discusses it in his
diary, and Daniel Defoe writes about it in his work 'ƵŝĚĞǁƌŝƩĞŶďLJĚǁĂƌĚd͘^ƵůůŝǀĂŶ͕ĂůŝďƌĂƌŝĂŶĂŶĚ
A Journal of the Plague Year. Pox most likely refers to ǁƌŝƚĞƌǁŚŽůŝǀĞƐŝŶKĂŬZŝĚŐĞ͕dĞŶŶĞƐƐĞĞ͘
smallpox. Have students work in pairs to research
these diseases and share their findings with the rest
of the class.
Students who want to learn more about oddities,
prodigies, and the history of sideshows can learn
more at Sideshow World: www.sideshowworld.com.

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Cooper, Susan. King of Shadows. McElderry, 1999.

Crowley, Suzanne. The Stolen One. Greenwillow,
2009.
Hooper, Mary. At the House of the Magician.
Bloomsbury, 2007.
———. By Royal Command, Bloomsbury, 2008.
———. The Betrayal, Bloomsbury, 2009.
Hooper, Mary. At the Sign of the Sugared Plum.
Bloomsbury, 2003.
———. Petals in the Ashes. Bloomsbury, 2006.
Klause, Annette Curtis. Freaks: Alive, on the Inside.
McElderry, 2006.
Noyes, Deborah, ed. Sideshow: Ten Original Tales of
Freaks, Illusionists, and Other Matters Odd and
Magical. Candlewick, 2009.

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