Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for The Night Ship by Jess Kidd

Book Club Discussion Questions

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Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Jess Kidd evokes both being aboard the Batavia and life among the seasonal fishing community on Beacon Island through all five senses. What descriptions made these settings come alive for you? Were there any parts of Kidd's sea voyage that felt familiar, or some that felt new?
2. How does Kidd mirror Mayken and Gil's separate journeys in chapters 1 and 2? As the story progresses, do you find Gil's outsider identity important to the novel? How does his 'otherness' reflect Mayken's experience?
3. How would you characterize the tone of the story? How does the language contribute to the tone? What else contributes to it?
4. Discuss the differences and similarities between Mayken and Gil. Despite their being more than three hundred years apart, what are some of their shared experiences?
5. As tensions rise during the Batavia's voyage and after the shipwreck, what role does the Bullebak play in the novel? How is this reflected in the use of the Bunyip in Gil's time?
6. Storytelling is woven into The Night Ship in various ways, including through folklore and family histories. What do you think the author is trying to achieve with these layers of storytelling?
7. Each child has parental figures who step in at different times in their journeys (for examples, Imke, Holdfast, Dutch, and Silvia). How would you describe these stand-in parents? In what ways were these adults important for Mayken and Gil?
8. Loss is central to both Mayken and Gil's experience; for starters, each child has lost their mother. Discuss some of their major (and minor) losses throughout the novel and how these may have shaped them as characters.
9. Each character brings something different to the story. Did you relate to any of them in particular? If so, please explain who and why.
10. As we reach the conclusion of the novel, the chapters become shorter. Why do you think the author chose to do this? Do these quicker chapters add to the urgency of the conclusion?
11. Given that this book is based on real-life events that took place during the voyage of the Batavia (as we are reminded in the epilogue), what do you think we should take away from Mayken's story?
12. Jess Kidd's novels cross genres, blending light and darkness, whimsy and mystery, the real and the supernatural. If you had to sum up this book in one line, how would you describe it?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Atria Books. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.