1. When Becky returns to Liberty in 1934, she is broke and finds out that Dr. Blum’s home has been sold for back taxes. Currently, many families have lost their homes to foreclosure. Have you ever been poor or nearly destitute? How do you think you would react?

2. Dr. Blum’s disability is frustrating to Becky. Even though she’s a nurse and a friend, she doesn’t really have to take care of him. What would you do? (Keeping in mind that he has no family willing to take him and there were no adult social services available during the Great Depression.)

3. Becky came from an affluent family. She has never had to want for anything. It’s hard for her to accept the charity of Mr. Bittman when he gives her the box of rotten apples…How do you think you would feel?

4. Patience, the midwife of Hope River, is comfortable with the noises and smells and sights of childbirth, but Becky finds them unsettling and downright scary. How do you feel?

5. Facing the hard winter, Patience tells Becky that they will all have to pull together and somehow they will get through. In our mobile society, what place do family and community play in your life?

6. If you, like Patience, had to stay in bed for three months to keep from losing your baby, do you think you could do it?

7. What do you think about the friendship between Dr. Hester and Dr. Blum? How does the vet help Dr. Blum heal?

8. How does Blum’s experience being helpless and poor change him?

9. How do we heal one another? Have you ever had an experience when a friend played a big role in helping you heal physically or emotionally?

10. Have you ever heard of the CCC camps? How do you think they would benefit society today?

11. What is it that the Hazel Patch folks have that many others in Union County do not?

12. The forest fire of 1935 left death and destruction in its wake. Have you ever faced a natural disaster? How did it change you?