"The Glass Castle" Study Guide

Jeannette Walls

Who is the author of this novel?

A Woman on the Street

What is the name of Part 1 of the book?

New York City

Where does Part 1 of the book take place?

Dumpster

What is the author's mom rooting through?

Park Avenue

At what New York street is the author's home?

She would call out her name and her secret would get out

Why was the author afraid that her mom would see her in the taxi?

True

True or false: the author's mother is homeless

True

True or false: the author's mother can be described as an artist

False

True or false: the author's parents didn't choose to be poor.

She would leave a message with her mom's friend and wait until she answers

How does the author usually contact her mom?

Chinese restaurant

Where does Jeannette meet her mom days later in Part 1?

She is too easily embarrassed

According to her mom, why does Jeannette "need help" instead of her?

Lori

What is the name of the author's older sister?

3

How many years is Lori from the author?

Brian

What is the name of the author's younger brother?

1

How many years is Brian from the author?

The Desert

What is the name of Part 2 of the book?

3

How old is the author at the very beginning of Part 2?

Trailer park

In what type of community did the Walls family live in at Southern Arizona?

Rex

What is the name of Jeannette's father?

Rose Mary

What is the name of the Jeannette's mother?

Maureen

What is the name of Jeannette's younger sister?

Southern Arizona

Where was Jeannette live at the beginning of Part 2?

Cooking hot dogs

What was Jeannette doing when she was burned?

6

How many years apart are Maureen and Jeannette?

Welch, West Virginia

What is the hometown of Jeannette's father?

3

Jeannette's earliest memory comes from when she was how many years old?

Mountain Goat

What is the nickname that Jeannette's father gives to Jeannette?

Phoenix, Arizona

In which city did Jeannette's maternal grandmother live in?

Desert

In what type of environment did Jeannette's mother grow up in?

The Glass Castle

What is the name of the large, glass house that Jeannette's father was planning to build for the family in the desert? It is intended to be eco-friendly.

1

How many years apart are Jeannette and Brian?

Blue Goose

What was the name of the first family car?

Red

What is the color of Jeannette's hair?

The Prospector

What is the name of the complicated contraption Jeannette's father planned to scoop up dirt and rocks, sift them through wooden strips, and determine if a rock was gold by its weight?

1956

In what year did Jeannette's parents marry each other?

Fish Creek Canyon, Arizona

Where did Rex Walls meet Rose Mary Smith?

Air force

In what branch of the military did Rex Walls involve himself in before he got married?

Little mining towns

What types of towns do Jeannette's parents like moving to?

Jeannette

Who is Rex Walls's favorite child?

Grandma Smith

What is the name of Jeannette's maternal grandmother?

Swing Low, Swing Chariot

What is Rex Walls's favorite song/hymn?

Welch, West Virginia

Where was Rex Walls from?

Erma

What is the name of Rex Walls' mother?

Lori

Who is the Rose Mary Walls' favorite child?

Stanley

What is the name of Jeanette's paternal uncle?

Little Hobart Street

What was the Walls' address in West Virginia?

North Third Street

What was the Walls' address in Phoenix, Arizona?

Lily Ruth Maureen

What is Maureen's birth name?

She was burned while cooking hotdogs

What is Jeannette's earliest memory?

Tinkerbell

What doll does Jeanette accidentally burn?

Being set on fire

What is Jeannette's first memory?

For stabbing her mother

Why does Maureen get arrested?

That her father stop drinking

What does Jeannette want for her 10th birthday?

Gambling, drinking

What are Rex Walls' two addictions?

Pet a cheetah

What do Rex and his children do at the zoo?

Chewing gum

What does Jeannette try for the first time in the hospital?

After her junior year of high school

When does Jeanette move to new York?

Dinitia Hewitt

Who is the black girl that Jeannette befriends in Welch?

Barnard

What is the name of the college that Jeannette attends in New York City?

Columbia

Barnard is a college of what Ivy League University?

German

What type of restaurant does Lori work at in New York?

Chuck Yeager

Which hero of Rex's visits Welch?

Artist

What does Lori decide she wants to do as a career?

The Hot Pot

Where does Jeannette learn to swim?

Eric Goldberg

What is the name of Jeannette's first husband?

Rex steals it

What happens to the money the Walls children save in Oz, the piggy bank?

The government repossesses it

What happens to Erma and Ted's house?

Ernie Goad

In the Battle of Little Hobart Street, the Brian and Jeannette fight against __________ and win.

Picking through the trash

In the opening section, what does Jeannette see her mom doing on a street in New York City?

Giant chocolate bar

The children, who often go hungry, discover that Mom is hiding a ____________ from them and eating it all by herself.

False

True or False? Before Jeannette leaves for New York, Dad gives her a lucky rabbit's foot as a parting gift.

False

True or False? Jeannette and Ben find a diamond ring that Mom sells for five thousand dollars.

Material things do not matter.

When Dad "gives" each child a real star for Christmas, what is he teaching them?

That her dad would stop drinking

What does Jeannette wish for on her tenth birthday?

Cactus and Joshua Tree

Wells compares her family to which two plants?

True

True or False? Through Jeannette's job on the school newspaper, she is astounded to learn about the outside world through a source other than her parents.

True

True or False? A whipping from Dad spurs Jeannette to start saving money as an "escape fund."

False

True or False? As an adult, Jeannette never comes to peace with her parents and their parenting style.

Bad Eyesight

Lori's reluctance to her interest in books arise from her ____________.

A sudden move out of town.

Dad is known for doing "the skedaddle," which is

With Erma, Dads mother

When the Wells family arrive in Welch, they live ____________.

A crooked joshua tree

What type of plant is Rose Mary fascinated by in the desert?

She stabs her mother's boyfriend to death

Why is Dinitia arrested?

A turquoise ring

What does Billy Deel give to Jeannette as a gift?

Discipline

As a teacher, Rose Mary has the most trouble with what?

Journalism

Jeannette Walls enters what professional field?

A Sad Sack Comic

What does Rex force Brian to give to Ginger, the woman from the Green Lantern?

FBI agents

Who did Rex Walls believe was chasing his family?

Blue Goose

What did the Walls family name their first car?

A Plymouth

What type of car was the Blue Goose?

Cindy Thompson

A girl in Welch who tries to befriend Jeannette and convince her to join the junior Ku Klux Klan.

The Grady Kids

Twelve children who also lived on Hobart Street. The children had no father and their mother was bed-ridden. The boys lived uninhibited and wildly. Rose Mary said they were an example of people who were worse off than her own children.

Kenny Hall

A forty-two year old man with a mental disability. The children in Welch played tricks on him and told him that the could go on a date with Jeannette if he did something for them. Many Saturday nights Jeannette had to explain to a crying and complaining Kenny that she did not date older men and she would not go out with him.

Ginnie Sue Pastor

The "town *****" in Welch, Ginnie is thirty-three years old with 9 children. She is married to Clarence Pastor who has black lung.

Clarence Pastor

Ginnie Sue's husband. Clarence is plagued by black lung and spends his days sitting in his home.

Blythe, California

Where was Maureen born?

The middle of the desert

Where does the family immediately go to after southern Arizona?

March

In which month did Jeannette see her mother in Part 1?

As an electrician and engineer

Typically in each town, what type of job would Rex Walls get?