1. Are there points of similarity between the three mothers (Jo, Alicia, and the polar bear) featured in The Ice Child?

2. What points of similarity exist, if any, among the three sons of The Ice Child (John, Sam, and polar bear cub)?

3. Does John's relationship with his father have any bearing on John's relationship with Catherine? Why or why not?

4. As citizens of a modern age, do we have (or does the possibility exist for) an exploration that parallels what the Franklin Expedition meant to the people who lived in Victorian times? Does the story of The Ice Child provide one?

5. What do you think motivates Alicia's change of heart towards Jo and Sam?

6. Does the character of Catherine Takkiruq and her relationship to John, Jo, and Sam have any bearing to the relationship between the Esquimaux that Crozier encountered?

7. Working from historical fact, author Elizabeth McGregor has imagined the possible outcome of the Franklin Expedition. From what you have read in The Ice Child, what circumstances prevented the Expedition from a successful outcome?

8. Many of the characters in The Ice Child are searching for something--a passage, an answer, a reason, a cure. Is every search successful? Noble? Necessary?