In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Book Club Discussion Questions for The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

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

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

The Yellow Birds

A Novel

by Kevin Powers
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Sep 11, 2012, 240 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 2013, 256 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this Book

Book Club Discussion Questions

Print PDF

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

  1. Discuss the title, The Yellow Birds, and the U.S. Army marching cadence that inspired it. What does the ca- dence mean to you? How does the cadence and the title influence your reading of the book?
  2. John Bartle and Daniel Murphy first meet when Sergeant Sterling orders them to work as a team. From that moment on, they spend every minute together. How does their relationship evolve, and how is it shaped by the war? In what ways do you read The Yellow Birds as a novel about friendship?
  3. The story unfolds in a nonlinear narrative, with scenes alternating between Bartle's time as a soldier at war and Bartle's time as a veteran. What effect do you think this structure achieves? Is the story better told this way than chronologically? Why or why not?
  4. When Bartle returns home, the first person he sees is his mother. How has their relationship changed, and why? What does Bartle's experience reveal about the effect of the war on veterans' families?
  5. Bartle believes that cowardice is what motivated him to join the military; he also believes it's what prevents him from becoming a man. When in the novel is Bartle truly a coward, and when is he truly brave? How do you think his notions of cowardice evolve or change throughout the book? And how are they intertwined with his feelings of guilt?
  6. "Nothing seemed more natural than someone getting killed," Bartle thinks early on in The Yellow Birds. What do you make of his attitude toward death and how it evolves through the course of the novel?
  7. When thinking about the letter he writes to Murphy's mother, Bartle reflects, "If writing it was wrong, then I was wrong. If writing it was not wrong, enough of what I'd done had been wrong and I would accept whatever punishment it carried." Why do you think Bartle felt compelled to write the letter? How did it affect Murphy's mother, and how did it affect Bartle? Was it the right decision? Why or why not?
  8. In an interview, author Kevin Powers said, "If I tried to summarize what I was exploring in the book it would be this: what does it mean to try to be good and fail?" Discuss this question with your group. Have you ever experienced this personally? If so, how did you come to terms with it?
  9. In reviews, The Yellow Birds has been compared to the works of great writers of war, such as Ernest Hemingway, Erich Maria Remarque, Wilfred Owen, and Tim O'Brien. In O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried, he writes, "A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth." Discuss your perspective on the intersection of truth and fiction. What truths do you find in The Yellow Birds? How does your experience of reading fiction about war differ from your experience of reading nonfiction accounts, such as newspaper articles?
  10. Discuss the ending of the book and your emotional reaction to it. Do you read the ending as melancholy, hopeful, or both? What do you imagine lies ahead for Bartle?


Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Back Bay Books. 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:
  Kevin Powers, the Poet

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas...

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

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

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.