The Book of Lost Things

One of the central themes in The Book of Lost Things is The Benefits and Losses of Growing Up. Does David lose or gain more over the course of the novel? These points may be helpful for reflection as you formulate a response:

• What are David’s biggest losses?
• How does he deal with the losses?
• How does David grow and change?
• What would David say he has gained by the time he returns from Elsewhere?
• What does the end of the novel reveal?

Use text details to support your answer.

Teaching Suggestion: Leaning into the theme of The Benefits and Losses of Growing Up may provide an entry point to this question, but the idea of losses and gains expands beyond that focus as well. Students might prepare for this prompt during their reading of the novel, annotating or listing “losses” and “gains” with page numbers. To extend the analysis, students might explore more deeply what constitutes a loss or gain and decide how impactful each incident they document is by weighting, ranking, or otherwise reflecting on the power of each. Another opportunity for increasing critical thinking in the discussion exists in categorizing the gains and losses through closed sorting, in which the teacher provides a list of categories; alternatively, students could develop the titles of each category themselves.