A Rover's Story

The robots of A Rover’s Story serve as a way to explore the human condition. What qualities give the living robots life? In what ways does Resilience’s mission to Mars parallel the human journey of coming of age? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

Based on Journey’s personality, how would she have done on Mars? Would she have been able to accomplish what Resilience did? Why or why not, and what elements of her personality support your argument? How might the story have been different if Journey accompanied Resilience to Mars, and what about Journey would have informed these differences?

In Chapter 21, Sophie poses questions about what it means to change the world and why it needs changing at all. Answer her questions based on the arc of A Rover’s Story and your own personal beliefs. What change might the exploration bring about? Will this change be good or bad for Earth and humans? Do we “need” to explore Mars? Why or why not? What does it mean to change the world, and do you think our world needs changing?

Compare and contrast Resilience and Journey, paying special attention to the debate of nature versus nurture. How do the rovers’ environments make them different? What does answering this question say about how environments influence people? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

What lessons does A Rover’s Story offer about learning to deal with emotions? How can logic help when it comes to understanding what we’re feeling? Choose three moments where either Resilience or Sophie grapples with complex emotional reactions and outline how they use logic to unpack their feelings.

Consider the process of Balancing Emotion and Logic. What are the benefits to finding a balance between these two types of thinking? What are the positive and negative aspects of both emotion and logic, and which aspects of each directly work on the other to achieve balance?

Warga explores the human condition throughout the novel. Choose three situations that Resilience encounters and describe how each situation comments on humanity. How does each situation push Resilience’s emotional development forward? How does it reflect an experience common to humans in their own emotional development? Consider in particular the theme of Grief and Loss as Part of Life in answering these questions.

Resilience’s character growth is often informed by those around him. Choose three characters Resilience interacts with and describe how he grows and changes as a result of his relationship with each. What did answering this question teach you about relationships and about how we develop as individuals?