Book Club
Current Book
Join us for a lively discussion on May 13, 2025 at 7:00 pm at Cancun Mexican Grill for a lively discussion of this month’s book “Wandering Stars” by Tommy Orange. Books can be checked out at the library Circulation Desk, or put on hold here.
Download the eBook or audiobook on Libby here.
Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.In a novel that is by turns shattering and wondrous, Tommy Orange has conjured the ancestors of the family readers first fell in love with in There There–warriors, drunks, outlaws, addicts–asking what it means to be the children and grandchildren of massacre. Wandering Stars is a novel about epigenetic and generational trauma that has the force and vision of a modern epic, an exceptionally powerful new book from one of the most exciting writers at work today and soaring confirmation of Tommy Orange’s monumental gifts.
Copies of the book are available at LTPL and as a downloadable e-book and audiobook on Libby .
Please contact the library if you need assistance in how to use Libby or Hoopla on your own device.
All are welcome! No registration required.
Discussion Questions
1. In the prologue, Tommy Orange discusses a history of colonial violence and assimilation. In what ways does this lay the foundation for the rest of the novel?
2. While Jude Star is at Fort Marion, he talks about white visitors coming to see them “perform being Indian.” How do we see the commodification and fetishization of Native people represented throughout the book?
3. There are many instances where names and the significance of those names are discussed in the narrative. What is the importance of names as they tie into identity, culture and assimilation? What does it mean for a character to change their name?
4. In Chapter 2, Jude describes being on a train and riding past piles of buffalo bones, and in the narrative he states, “Every buffalo dead was an Indian gone.” What is the significance of that statement? In what other ways have settlers tried to colonize Native people?
5. The story begins with Jude and then unfolds across seven generations into the present, ending with baby Opal. Why is it important that the story is told through multiple generations in one family? How does this novel connect to the Seventh Generation Principle?
6. How do identity and community affect healing? How do we see this represented in the novel?
7. In what way does colonization affect a parent’s or grandparent’s relationship with their children and grandchildren? Name examples from the book.
8. What is the significance of Opal giving Charles a traditional burial? How does the story shift with the end of the chapter?
9. Chapter 12 follows Victoria Bear Shield and is told in the second person. Why? What feeling does this switch invoke?
10. What effects does interracial adoption have on Native people and communities as represented in the book?
11. How do Orvil, Loother and Lony each respond to trauma? In what way is this affected by their disconnection from their Indigenous community?
12. Why did Opal keep cultural knowledge and family stories from the boys?
13. Throughout the novel, dreaming is something that ties the characters together. How do the characters’ dreams reflect their emotional states?
14. Stars and birds are woven throughout the entire novel. What do they symbolize?
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