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Tucket's Gold by Gary Paulsen

Young Reader's Choice Award Junior Division

Summary

Award winner

This is a Young Readers Choice Award winner

Tucket, Lottie, and Billy are fleeing for their lives. After narrowly escaping the grasp of the Comancheros, a group of fierce bandits, Tucket must keep Lottie and Billy, two orphaned children, out of harms way. At the same time, Tucket is searching for his family after being kidnapped from their wagon on the Oregon Trail over a year before. Now, after discovering a hidden treasure, could luck be changing for the better? Only time will tell.

Discussion questions

  1. Describe Francis Tucket. How is he a good leader?
  2. How did Tucket meet Lottie and Billy?
  3. Tucket has survived for over a year in the wilderness. Who taught him to survive? Name several of Tucket's survival skills.
  4. Describe Lottie. How are Francis and Lottie similar/different?
  5. Who discovers the gold? Where is the gold? What would you do with the gold?
  6. Why does Tucket decide to only take two bars of gold
  7. Both Tucket and Lottie think they see a castle in the distance. What is it really? Why is Tucket hesitant to go there?
  8. Who helps Tucket when the snake bites him?
  9. Tucket begins to see Lottie and Billy more as family than his mother and father. Why is this? How do you define family?
  10. How does Billy change? Why?
  11. Who captures Lottie and Tucket? What do they plan to do with them?
  12. At the end of the novel why does Tucket feel sorry for Billy? What happened?

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