1a. What do Deb and Trinja discover at the far end of the mall?
2a. What do Deb and Trinja say about the machine that appears in the mall parking lot one day?
3a. What demonstrates the popularity of the slimmers? How do the slimmers work?
4a. What explanation does Deb's little brother have for the swoodie shops and the slimmers?
1b. Why does their discovery become so popular?
2b. Why does Deb decide to give this machine a try?
3b. Why are people so eager to use the slimmers? Why are they content with knowing so little about the machines?
4b. Why does Deb react the way she does to her brother's explanation?
5a. What examples of human behavior from the story support the explanation offered by Deb's brother? What examples of human behavior negate this view?
5b. Why do you think Deb disagrees with her brother? Do you think she finds his story unbelievable, or do you think she simply doesn't want to believe it so she can continue eating swoodies and going to the slimmer? Explain your answer.
6a. Do you find the explanation given by Deb's brother believable? Explain your answer.
6b. If the situation presented in this book happened in your town right now, what do you think would happen? Do you think people would react the way the characters in the story react?
Science Fiction. What elements of this story are based in science fiction? What elements are realistic? What kind of balance would you describe? How do the events of the story reflect current events or today's society?
Sensory Details. What sensory details can you identify in this story? To which senses do they appeal?
1. Create an advertisement for swoodies, designed to appeal to people your age. Use the space below to write your ideas.
2. Imagine you are a news reporter. Write a brief news report describing the arrival of slimmers.
3. Imagine you are an investigator working for the Health Brigade Corp. Make a list of interview questions for Deb, Trinja, and a worker at a slimmer.
Researching Eating Disorders: Research Log. Make a list of search engine keywords you want to try. As you view the sites that the search engine calls up, take notes about the sites you visit. Which keywords bring up the most site hits? Which sites seem to have the most reliable information? Write a synopsis of what you learn and where you got your information.
Keywords:
Sites found from first keyword:
Information found:
Sites found from second keyword:
Sites found from third keyword:
Summary:
Using Who and Whom. People commonly get confused over when to use who and when to use whom. The pronoun who is used as a subject of a sentence. Whom is used as the direct object or as the object of a preposition.
Example Who ate the last doughnut? (subject) Whom did you call? (direct object) To whom should I send this request? (object of the preposition to)
In each blank, write in either who or whom, whichever form is correct for that sentence.
1. _______ did you meet at the mall?
2. _______ told you about the aliens?
3. _______ would like to go have swoodies?
4. To _______ did you give the 400 yen?
5. For _______ is this gift?
6. _______ needs a ride to the slimmer?
7. Against _______ are we playing in tonight's soccer game?
8. _______ is the author of "Lose Now, Pay Later"?
9. _______ is Deb's best friend?
10. With _______ did Deb argue?
Creating New Words. "Lose Now, Pay Later" has several terms that are made up. Swoodies, for example, is a combination of sweets and goodies. Other terms, such as heliobile, calshow, and bodivision are words the author imagined as names for common objects in the year 2041. Review the story and come up with definitions for these words. Then, use your imagination to develop a science fiction topic and story line. Within the science fiction "world" you create in your head, imagine what new objects, actions, or ideas might be introduced. Brainstorm a list of five new words and their definitions.
heliobile:
calshow:
bodivision:
five new words and definitions:
