Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Club Discussion Questions for Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

by Amy Chua
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Readers' Rating (27):
  • First Published:
  • Jan 11, 2011, 256 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Dec 2011, 256 pages
  • Rate this book

About this Book

Book Club Discussion Questions

Print PDF

Want to participate in our book club? Join BookBrowse and get free books to discuss!

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

  1. How do you feel about the approaches Amy used in raising her children? Are there any of them you think you could adopt and use yourself? Do you think you could have the discipline and self-sacrifice to carry them out to the same extent? And would you want to?

  2. For mothers of daughters: How well, or can you, relate to the following passage: (page 112): "The thing about Lulu and me is that we're at once incompatible and really close. We can have a great time but also hurt each other deeply. We always know what the other is thinking - which form of psychological torture is being deployed - and we both can't help ourselves. We both tend to explode and then feel fine. Jed has never understood how one minute Lulu and I will be screaming death threats at each other, and the next minute we'll be lying in bed, Lulu's arms wrapped around me, talking about violins or reading and laughing together."

  3. There is very little about Amy's husband in the book. How do you think he handled this culture clash?

  4. Amy Chua's daughters achieve musical success early in their lives. How does that validate Chua's child-rearing strategies? Would these strategies work in a non-Asian family setting?

  5. Do you think Amy Chua presents an accurate picture of Chinese parenting or she is a particularly controlling and driven individual?

  6. What do you think Amy Chua's motive to write this book might be?

  7. As children we often don't want to do what may be difficult or boring but we become better with practice as Amy's children did with the violin and piano. Is there anything that you wish now that you had been required to do more of when you were a child so you could be better at it now.

Questions suggested by BookBrowse members.

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

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book:
  The Tiger Mother Media-Storm

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: My Friends
    My Friends
    by Hisham Matar
    The title of Hisham Matar's My Friends takes on affectionate but mournful tones as its story unfolds...
  • Book Jacket: James
    James
    by Percival Everett
    The Oscar-nominated film American Fiction (2023) and the Percival Everett novel it was based on, ...
  • Book Jacket
    But the Girl
    by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu
    Jessica Zhan Mei Yu's But the Girl begins with the real-life disappearance of Malaysia Airlines ...
  • Book Jacket: Patriot
    Patriot
    by Alexei Navalny
    On the 17th of January, 2024, colleagues of Alexei Navalny posted a message to his Instagram account...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.