Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for Beep by Bill Roorbach

1. So many characters come into Beep's world, and he into theirs. Who are your favorites and why?
2. Monkeys don't talk. Not in words. But Beep sounds like a Charles Dickens character. How hard or easy was it for you to suspend your disbelief and accept a talking monkey for a narrator/protagonist? Where in the book were you most sucked in by the monkey mojo? Where were you most skeptical? What won you over in the end?
3. There are a number of sly literary allusions in Beep. How many can you pick out?
4. What do you think the world will be like for you-mens in the days and months and years following the conclusion of Beep?
5. Who are the bad guys in Beep, and why?
6. Inga is a true girl of powers, including courage, empathy, kindness, and compassion. She's also a bit of a rebel, even at the tender age of eleven. How does her character influence the course of the story? How might her age affect the choices she makes?
7. Beep the monkey takes a dim view of zoos. Why? How does this square with your own visits to zoos and your perspective on animals? Which zoo animals were you rooting for? And what do you think will happen to them after the last page of the novel?
8. Beep moves from rainforest to city and back again. How do the changing settings reflect the structure of the book?
9. Beep seems to say that all living things are interconnected, and that you-mens have drifted away from this connection. What evidence do you see for this in the real world?
10. What does the term "moodling" mean to Beep? Is it different from moodling in his world? Are there any ways you feel the moodle in your own life?
11. If , for whatever reason, civilization were to collapse tomorrow, how do you think you'd get a long? What would it take to survive?
12. Why do the animals of Beep impose forgetting after the great pa roxysm?
13. Beep the monkey has a lot of pithy misunderstandings about the you -men world. Are there any ways he mad e you see yourself or your surroundings anew?
14. What is gained by telling this story from the first-person perspective of Beep? How would the telling be affected if it were told in third person, and what would be lost?
15. The shubble buzz is piloted by a person perhaps a little different from most Americans. How does their worldview rhyme with Beep's? How d id that come to pass?
16. Why does Beep think Greta Thunberg is a monkey?
17. How is Central Park, a beautiful urban green space, different from the rainforest? Could a monkey ever be happy there?
18. The animals of Beep seem to accept a certain level of killing and eating among themselves, yet they can't accept h u ma n depredations. What's the difference?
19. Are you more a goer or a grower? What would it take for you to become a sensitive?
20. Beep's knowledge and vocabulary seem to grow as the book progresses. Why do you think this happens? What m ight it have to do wit h the power of moodling?

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