Book Club Kit Questions*
Something Beautiful
By Sharon Dennis Wyeth
1. What does the little girl see as she looks out her window and walks through her
neighborhood? How do you think she feels about what she sees?
2. How does the little girl define “beautiful”? Do you agree with her definition?
3. Is beautiful just a physical thing? Can you be beautiful on the inside?
4. What do different members of the girl’s community see as beautiful? How is beauty
experienced through the five senses? (For example, what does beautiful look like?
Sound like? Feel like?)
5. At the end of the story, the mother tells her daughter that her “something beautiful” is
the girl. Do you think that the mother was referring to her daughter’s physical beauty or
to her inner beauty? Or both?
6. What do you think ended up being the girl’s “something beautiful”?
7. How are the little girl’s eyes opened to her community as a result of her
conversations with the people who live in it? Do you think the girl has the power to make
change and to make her neighborhood a better place?
8. Why do you think the girl said that she wanted to give the homeless lady sleeping on
the sidewalk a real home? Do you think she could really give her a home?
9. Why was it powerful to scrub the word “Die” off of her door? What did that symbolize?
* Discussion questions from (1) Teaching Children Philosophy at
http://www.teachingchildrenphilosophy.org/wiki/Something_Beautiful and
(2) Interdisciplinary Lesson Plan at http://www.sd282.org