Panic by Sharon M. Draper | eBook

Reading Group Guide

A Reading Group Guide to

Panic
By Sharon M. Draper

Discussion Questions

1. Panic begins with a confrontation between Justin, a dancer, and some local bullies. How does this help capture the reader’s attention? Discuss the impact of bullies in schools. What is your opinion of how Justin handles the bullies?

2. What predictions can the reader make about Justin and his role as a dancer and a teenager? Compare those predictions to what really happens at the end of the novel.

3. Describe the dance academy and the role it seems to play in the lives of the students who take lessons there. How is the relationship between a dance teacher and her students different from an academic classroom teacher and his or her students?

4. Describe Diamond’s home life. As you first meet Diamond, how is she like many young people today? How is she different? What seem to be her biggest insecurities? Her greatest strengths? What character traits does she have that will help her through the difficulties to come?

5. Describe the initial meeting between Diamond and Thane. How believable is it that he is able to convince her to leave with him? Do you think he planned that confrontation? What would you have done in the same situation?

6. Discuss the reactions of the students to Diamond’s disappearance. Which characters stand out and why?

7. How does Diamond gradually discover the enormity and evil of her situation? What is both ironic and horrible about Thane’s explanation of what is to happen?

8. Describe Donovan physically, emotionally, and socially. Why do you think a girl like Layla lets him mistreat her? What factors in her life might play a part? How is Donny’s behavior another form of bullying?

9. If available, listen to the music Justin dances to in chapter 11. Visualize his performance as you listen. How do the words match both the movement and the music?

10. Compare and contrast the April 14 Sunday morning of Mercedes and of Diamond.

11. How do extraordinary events affect the lives of ordinary people? Describe how Diamond’s disappearance affected her parents, her sister, and her friends.

12. Compare and contrast the relationship of Mercedes and Steve, and the relationship of Layla and Donovan. Give specific examples of noticeable differences.

13. The source of pleasure for most of the characters in the book is dance. Describe how music and dance in the novel help to aid various characters throughout. Why are music and performance easy ways to explain complicated feelings? How can self-expression be used as a tool for helping or healing?

14. Layla thinks she is in control of the situation when she lets Donny take the pictures. Describe how innocent lapses in judgment led to her problems the next day.

15. Discuss the power of social media, the Internet, and instant sharing of information. How can that be both positive and negative?

16. Compare and contrast the reaction of students at school to Layla’s pictures and Justin’s reaction to the pictures and to Layla.

17. How does Diamond find the strength to survive her ordeal? What does she do to cling to hope? How successful do you think her reintegration into both school and dance classes will be?

18. Compare and contrast Diamond’s abuse and Layla’s abuse. How are their situations similar? How are they different?

19. Explain the title of the novel. Why does the title have more than one possible interpretation? Use specific examples to support your answer.

20. Partner abuse in high school, bullying, and the criminality of Internet sexual abuse are topics that need to be discussed. Discuss how the lives of Diamond and the others are portrayed and how the characters can become voices for young readers.

Activities and Research

1. You are a reporter at one of the following scenes:

• the dance recital
• the video made by Diamond’s parents, pleading for her release
• the scene where rescue crews arrive for Diamond
• classes and activities at the dance academy

Write the story for your newspaper.

2. Investigate child abductions. Find out statistics as well as solutions.

3. Investigate bullying in schools. Find out statistics as well as solutions.

4. Explain how the quotes from Peter Pan fit into the flow of each chapter. OR Read the original Peter Pan and analyze it as a children’s story.

5. Write a letter to one of the characters in the book explaining your feelings about the events in the story. What advice would you give Diamond, Layla, Justin, or Mercedes?

6. Imagine it is three months after the end of the novel. Write a letter or create a conversation between the following characters:
Layla to Justin
Diamond to Shasta
Mercedes to Miss Ginger
Zizi to Jillian
Thane to his lawyer

7. In diary form, write the life of Diamond (after the abduction) for several months. Include details about how she copes with her bad memories, her lost dreams, and her hope for the future.

8. Trace the story of one of the following characters. Imagine you are a reporter doing a story on one of their lives. Write everything you know, as well as whatever you can infer about the character in order to write your magazine article.
Thane
Donovan
Miss Ginger
Zizi

9. Listen to the songs used in the novel and tell how each one fit into the themes of the story and the lives of the characters.

10. Describe the relationship between the friends in the book. Is friendship enough when situations become monumental and overwhelming to young people? Explain.

Guide written by the author.

This guide has been provided by Simon & Schuster for classroom, library, and reading group use. It may be reproduced in its entirety or excerpted for these purposes.

Children's Literature - Tina Chan

Sixteen-year-old Diamond Landers goes missing after she willingly leaves the mall with a handsome, well dressed stranger named Thane, who strikes a conversation with her. Diamond is a dance student, and Thane says he is an assistant film director looking to cast the role of a dancer. He convinces her to go home with him to meet his teenage daughter and some celebrities. Intrigued, she goes with him. She soon discovers she is the victim of sadomasochist behavior with men that is shown online. Worried, Diamond’s family and friends try to find her with the help of the police. Meanwhile, her best friend Mercedes blames herself for staying in the store to buy a pair of tights while Diamond went to the food court, where she met Thane. Their friend Layla has a love-hate relationship with her boyfriend, Donovan, who physically and mentally abuses her, while Justin has a crush on her. An exciting and educational read for teens, this story helps readers think twice about their actions and consequences. The author includes website resources about teen dating abuse and child predators. Reviewer: Tina Chan; Ages 14 up.

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up—Draper has created a nurturing setting for her characters in the Crystal Pointe Dance Academy where students have been dancing and working together for years. Miss Ginger, their instructor, provides support and challenge in endeavors like the spring showcase or the upcoming production of Peter Pan. Diamond, 15, is swept off her feet by a stranger's promise of an audition for a movie when he finds her alone at the mall. Her BFF, Mercedes, gets a cryptic text before they are to meet at the food court to go to the academy for a performance. Through drugs and restraints, villainous Thane and his henchmen cameramen, as well as other paying participants, abuse Diamond as the unwilling star in Internet pornography for days. Meanwhile, with only intermittent plot coverage of Diamond's ordeal, the dance academy and school hold vigils and worry about their classmate. Most chapters actually deal with Layla: she doesn't acknowledge fellow dancer Justin's crush because she is more concerned about boyfriend, Donny, who gets dangerous and abuses her when he feels jealous or insecure. Layla suffers from some bad judgment, a mostly absentee mother, and the challenge of her father being released after six years in prison. This realistic novel takes on too many characters and plotlines, and the scattershot approach may leave readers less engaged and invested. Dance enthusiasts should enjoy the depictions of costumes, jitters, daunting roles, and therapeutic workouts. However, multiple issues-bullying, kidnapping, sexual enslavement by a predator-pedophile, abusive teen relationships, and sexting-result in hot-button overload.—Suzanne Gordon, Lanier High School, Sugar Hill, GA

Publishers Weekly

A tumultuous week in the lives of students at the Crystal Pointe Dance Academy is told through a variety of viewpoints. Justin, the academy's principal male dancer, must continually defend himself against homophobic taunts while he pines for Layla, whose low self-esteem keeps her locked in an abusive relationship. Zizi is an airhead, and Mercedes lives under the thumb of her oppressively rigid mother. Then there is Diamond, who goes to the mall for dance tights and leaves with a handsome older man who has promised her a film audition. As readers will likely predict, the film Thane is making will not be rated G. Diamond is drugged, tied to a bed, and raped repeatedly in the presence of some burly cameramen, who post the film online and rake in money. Diamond's chapters are brutal but, perhaps mercifully, they are few and far between; the story sidetracks frequently to other characters' less urgent dramas. Draper writes about the lives of teenagers with authority and believable dialogue, but the juxtaposition of banal moments with Diamond's nightmare makes the sexual violence feel uncomfortably trivialized. Ages 14–up. (Apr.)

starred review Shelf Awareness

* "Balances a suspenseful plot and the emotional growth of her characters with ease and grace."

Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com - Richie Partington

"Sharon M. Draper's PANIC is an outstanding book... [This is] high-interest contemporary fiction — a book that many readers will gulp down in one evening. It is a story that addresses important issues (like never getting into cars with strangers, and never letting your high school boyfriend take photos of you that you wouldn't want your parents to see). Thus, it is a book that could quite likely save lives and reputations. Some astute readers will recognize how these issues all relate to the objectification of women in our culture. And it is for these reasons that PANIC will be an important addition to middle school and high school collections. With a little luck, there will be lots of young adolescents who read it and learn the consequences of risky behaviors — without having to learn them the hard way."

From the Publisher

"A troupe of high school dance students is rocked when one of their number disappears.

The Crystal Pointe Dance Academy is a refuge for the group of students who take classes and participate in dance recitals. Each of them—Diamond, Layla, Mercedes and Justin, the only boy in the group—has a different reason to dance, but they all want to earn a role in the upcoming production of Peter Pan. When Diamond disappears during a routine trip to the mall, the close-knit group is thrown into emotional turmoil that mounts as the days go by. As it turns out, Diamond has been lured by a sexual predator dangling the promise of a movie audition and finds herself in a dire situation. While the four main characters alternate narration, this is really a two-sided story: Diamond’s story of abduction and exploitation, and the everyday concerns her friends face back home. The other dancers face tough situations, from relationship conflicts to a parent returning home after a long incarceration. Diamond’s story, though, with elements of suspense and sexual horror, is the more interesting of the two, and readers will find themselves impatient to get back to her ordeal, which is depicted frankly but with sensitivity. Threading through it all is the importance of the arts as a vehicle to get through tough times.

By turns pulse-pounding and inspiring."

* "Balances a suspenseful plot and the emotional growth of her characters with ease and grace."

Kirkus Reviews

A troupe of high school dance students is rocked when one of their number disappears. The Crystal Pointe Dance Academy is a refuge for the group of students who take classes and participate in dance recitals. Each of them--Diamond, Layla, Mercedes and Justin, the only boy in the group--has a different reason to dance, but they all want to earn a role in the upcoming production of Peter Pan. When Diamond disappears during a routine trip to the mall, the close-knit group is thrown into emotional turmoil that mounts as the days go by. As it turns out, Diamond has been lured by a sexual predator dangling the promise of a movie audition and finds herself in a dire situation. While the four main characters alternate narration, this is really a two-sided story: Diamond's story of abduction and exploitation, and the everyday concerns her friends face back home. The other dancers face tough situations, from relationship conflicts to a parent returning home after a long incarceration. Diamond's story, though, with elements of suspense and sexual horror, is the more interesting of the two, and readers will find themselves impatient to get back to her ordeal, which is depicted frankly but with sensitivity. Threading through it all is the importance of the arts as a vehicle to get through tough times. By turns pulse-pounding and inspiring. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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