Everything on a Waffle

Primrose’s mother calls her brother “hotfoot Jack” and says he is a drifter. How accurate does Primrose find that description? What frustrates Primrose about her uncle? Why is Uncle Jack so insistent that Primrose remain with him? Who wants Primrose out of Uncle Jack’s custody, and why?

When Sheriff Peters shows Primrose her mother’s raincoat (macintosh), he expects her to express grief and acknowledge the probability that her mother drowned in the typhoon. What is Primrose’s reaction?

Does Primrose describe any group of school friends? Does she mention having a best forever friend? Do tween girls usually have more close friends than Primrose? How does Primrose differ from most 11-year-old girls in her relationship with other classmates?

Why does Primrose conclude each chapter with the recipe for a dish that she mentions during the chapter? Where does she write down these recipes? What do her descriptions of these recipes reveal about her?

Throughout the narrative, Primrose continues to ask different adults whether they have ever known something was true even though there was no evidence for it. How do these adults respond to the question? Does the question cause any of them to believe, along with Primrose, that her parents will return alive?

At the beginning of the story, Primrose says she wants to travel like Honeycut to places where important things happen. By the end of the story, how has that idea changed? How has her opinion of Miss Honeycut changed?

Why were Evie and Bert, her foster parents, so interested in Primrose’s story? How did her relationship with Evie and Bert differ from her relationship with Miss Perfidy? How did her foster parents respond to her desire to return to Coal Harbour?

Throughout the narrative, Primrose experiences one sad, disastrous event after another. Does she ever blame anyone, either a person or God, for all these calamities? What is her typical response to these occurrences?