In this deeply moving and life-affirming tale, a mother must nurture her five-year-old son through an unfathomable situation with only the power of their imagination and their boundless capacity to love. Written for the stage by Academy Award® nominee Emma Donoghue, this unique theatrical adaptation featuring songs and music by Kathryn Joseph and director Cora Bissett takes audiences on a richly emotional journey told through ingenious stagecraft, powerhouse performances, and heart-stopping storytelling. Room reaffirms our belief in humanity and the astounding resilience of the human spirit. This updated and revised edition was published to coincide with the Broadway premiere in Spring 2023.

In Dublin, 1918, a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu is a small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, in "Donoghue's best novel since Room" (Kirkus Reviews). In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work. In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.

Five-year-old Jack and his Ma live in Room, an 11 foot square shed in the backyard of their abductor and captor, Old Nick. Ma came to Room from outside, but Jack was born into it and has never known anything else. Despite their confinement, Ma creates an extraordinary situation for her son, filled with learning, creative activities, and fantastic stories like Lewis Carroll s Alice in Wonderland. But Jack is growing bigger and older. Ma knows they must somehow escape this prison, but the challenge is how to do it. Their space is locked, soundproofed, and isolated. And yet, Ma and Jack come up with a plan that is a brave and scary. Ma and Jack succeed against many odds. The story balances their endurance outside Room with their survival tactics inside. Room is a complex and richly thematic novel told from the innocent outlook and perspective of the small Jack. Included in the discussion guide is an exclusive Bookclub-in-a-Box interview with Emma Donoghue. Every Bookclub-in-a-Box discussion guide includes complete coverage of the themes and symbols, writing style and interesting background information on the novel and the author, as well as a complementary RAG (Read-Along-Guide), a quick reference pamphlet offering interesting facts and questions to consider while reading the novel.

Bookclub-in-a-Box Discusses People of the Book, the Novel by Geraldine Brooks. If the Sarajevo Haggadah could speak, what extraordinary stories it would tell. It has traveled through countries and centuries, where it has been used, threatened, and rescued by people of different cultures and religions. It now rests in the National Museum in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Geraldine Brooks has created a distinctive story recounting the chronicle of this very special book. Come along with Bookclub-in-a-Box and find out more about the people of the book: those who created it, owned it, and were influenced by it. The book is a physical and symbolic symbol of survival and freedom for Hannah, for the Jewish people, and for the citizens of Sarajevo. Included in this guide is historical information on the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted from 1992 to 1996. Every Bookclub-in-a-Box discussion guide also includes complete coverage of the themes and symbols, writing style, and interesting background information on the novel and the author.

It's 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi, and Skeeter has just graduated from Ole Miss. At a time and place where the ideal white woman is petite with carefully groomed straight hair and even more carefully groomed manners, Skeeter is tall and outspoken, with curly hair. Her mother wants Skeeter to wed; Skeeter wants to be a journalist. With the help of two of the town's black maids, Skeeter sets out to write a book telling the maids' stories from their point of view. But in Jackson, where a black boy is blinded for accidentally using a whites-only bathroom, and Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers is shot in his driveway in front of his children, this is a dangerous undertaking. Every Bookclub-in-a-Box discussion guide includes complete coverage of the themes and symbols, writing style and interesting background information on the novel and the author.

In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the "cat's table"—as far from the Captain's Table as can be—with a ragtag group of "insignificant" adults and two other boys. As the narrative moves between the decks and holds of the ship and in and out of the boy's adult years, it tells a spellbinding story, by turns poignant and electrifying, about the magical, often forbidden discoveries of childhood and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage. Michael Ondaatje is a master storyteller and uses symbols and imagery in a most unusual way. This guide for Michael Ondaatje's book will spark discussion of this and other topics: Is this novel a memoir or a work of fiction? Every Bookclub-in-a-Box discussion guide includes complete coverage of the themes and symbols, writing style, and interesting background information on the novel and the author.