Reader's Guide for Book Groups
In The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter, Holly Robinson sets out to answer this question about her father: “What kind of man becomes a Navy Officer, then sits on his ship in the middle of the ocean dreaming of gerbils?” After reading the book, how would you describe Holly's father? How do you think the book would have been different if the author had chosen to write it as a biography rather than a memoir?
This book outlines how one man turned his interest in gerbils into a lifelong career. In what ways is this a quintessentially American story about a small businessman? How does that story resonate given the recent ups and downs in today's economy?
Holly Robinson's father was in the Navy for twenty years and was a career officer who commanded a destroyer. Much of the book spans the Vietnam War. How did military life, and the war in particular, affect the family? Have you had any personal experiences with the military or the Vietnam War? How would this have been a different book without that backdrop?
How and why did the author and her family keep the gerbils a secret?
The author has very mixed feelings about her father ultimately raising gerbils for scientific research. Where in the book does she describe those feelings? How do you feel about using animals in medical research?
In the course of the book, the author's mother plays a significant and very different role in her life than her father does. How would you describe that role?
Everyone in this memoir, from the youngest child to the author's grandparents, is deeply involved in making the family business of raising gerbils a success. How is this similar – or different from – your own childhood experiences, or from your experience of being in business now?
Childhood was very different in the 1960s than it is now, during a time when more mothers work and parents orchestrate nearly every aspect of their children's lives. Point out some of the differences the author describes in The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter, and discuss your own observations of how parenting is different today from how it was during your own childhood.
How and why did the author choose to follow a very different dream from the family business of raising gerbils? What impact do you think her father's eccentric nature and odd career choice had on her?
What memories of your own childhood were stirred up by reading this memoir? If you were going to research your own family history, how would you begin?
What dreams do you have that might seem as impossible as the author's father's? Did reading this book make you think differently about how you might pursue your own passions?
