The following is a study guide that I developed for my students at Greenwood High on the novel For One More Day by Mitch Albom. Feel
free to use it for your own personal study of the novel or for classroom use. For the answer key, please write me from your school address
and I will gladly e-mail it to you. Happy Reading!!!
DEFINE THE FOLLOWING WORDS/PHRASES:
abhorrent absentia absurdity acutely addled admonished agitated anecdote antiseptic Apennine mountains
apparition assumptive auxiliary awning banished beret blundering bulbous cadence candid charming
Coiffed coiffed colossal coltish commandeered consoled Conspicuous convulsed critical crullers defensive
deflect devoid dignitaries disheveled distributorship divorcee eclipsing ecstatic Eludes embankment Embolism
emphysema Endured enlightenment entrepreneur exasperated exotic familiarity feverishly finagled flanked
foggy Forgive frothy guffawed hallucinating handout hokey hubris hypocrite immortal immortalized
inadvertently incongruent indeterminate Inexorably inexplicable Instinctively investment scheme Isolated labored
lather up (one’s anger) metronomes obligatory ornery ovation penance Perdonare - in Italian persistence of sound
phosphorescent plague pompadour postures prerogative prominent Prophecies Protestant pumpernickel bread
reliance (on alcohol) Repose resignation Retrospect ricochet riveted sadly parallel sashay scandalous scowling
seduced (by baseball) sidearm pitch sustain taunt tedious unnerved vortex wrath Ziti
JOURNALS:
Write at least 1 full page on each of the following journals. Choose and complete at least 15.
1. By whom do you measure yourself? What important person in your life do you hold yourself up to in order to compare? Discuss those things that
you look for in a “hero” and mentor and how you measure up to them.
2. What are some illusions your parents have about you? Do your parents support those illusions like Charlie’s Mom supported his illusion that he
liked who he was because she did?
3. Have you ever wished for something and then when it happened you wished you had not wished for it? Detail a personal experience where this
happened and one where the song lyric “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers” has occurred in your life.
4. Discuss a time when you made a mistake that lead to a series of bad decisions - a downward spiral - you “dug your own grave”. How did it end?
What did you learn?
5. Describe a person that you have know who put on an act to be seen in one way when he/she was actually a completely different person. Why did
they do it? Was it successful? How did you know they were not the person everyone else thought they were?
6. How does one “collect days”? What does this mean? Is there one that you did not collect that you regret? Explain and describe.
7. How can we avoid reaching a point where all of our dreams have come true and we have nothing left to look forward to? Discuss the ideas of
“delayed gratification” and “resetting the bar”.
8. Why do you think drunk people survive car crashes? Reflect on dying before you want to and not dying when you want to. What are the
disappointments of each.
9. Describe in detail a place from your youth that you will never forget and that typifies your childhood.
10. Why is being a “Mama’s boy” an insult to men? Is it actually an insult? Why do boys sometimes choose their Dads over their Mothers to avoid
the label? Consider male bonding, rituals, goading, torture through words in your answer.
11. What rituals do you and your family have like Charlie’s mother’s notes? Describe some. What things will you always remember and associate with
each family member? Consider Christmas, Thanksgiving, prayers, goodnights, goodbyes.
12. In what postures do you see your family and friends that typify them. Draw at least five and explain why the posture typifies them.
13. Do you or have your parent(s) have/had a “plan” for you and your future? Describe it and detail what it will take to get you there.
14. We all hold people to different standards. Teachers/Parents know what each student/child is capable of and do not want them to fail to reach their
full potential. Society holds teachers and the police to different standards than the rest of society, just to name a few. Discuss two people who
YOU hold to different standards and explain why. Should it be that way? Why or why not?
15. Have you ever moved to a new town, state, or country? If you went back after you had been gone for a while, what had changed and how did it
feel to see things again? What did you remember? If you have not yet gone back, what do you remember that will stick with you?
16. Write a memoir on one significant memory you have. Discuss its meaning to your life.
17. In the novel, the chapters go back and firth between memories that pop up. Write a train-of-thought journal about times that you did and did not
stand up for someone you love.
18. Write about a time when someone has “ruined” your life. Include details and growth from the experience. Did it actually ruin your life?
19. Why do we need to pass on pain to make ourselves feel better? Do you think that you will accept blame and pain from your children?
Why or why not?
20. Create a “secret code” with which to speak with someone or describe one you have already created. No pig Latin :o)
21. If you have gone through your parents’ divorce, describe how you were told it was going to happen. Did you think it was your fault? I did.
Discuss your feelings and physical reactions.
22. What memories do you have of your parents from when they were younger and you were younger. Describe in detail.
23. What foods do you associate with people in your family? Describe which and why for at least five different people.
24. Who do you think you will see when you die? Why?
25. Describe in detail how you think your parents will react the day you begin college or move out on your own and explain why.
26. Genetically children are half their father and half their mother. How does that translate psychologically for you? Are you being pulled in two
directions like Charlie was? Do you lean one way more than the other? Is it by choice or by habit? Discuss in detail.
27. You have, at some point in time, divorced yourself from something or someone. Discuss in detail how Charlie’s belief about the definition of the
word “divorce” meshes with your experience.
28. Write a memoir of your best ever and worst ever days.
29. If you could, what moment in your life would you change and why? Discuss in detail.
30. Describe in detail your earliest childhood memory. Examine all five senses as well as feelings and thoughts.
31. In what way does every family have a ghost story? Discuss your family’s “ghost story” in detail.
STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS:
1. Why dies the novel have sections that refer to times of day?
2. What does the title of each section mean in reference to the total novel and subject matter?
3. In what person is the novel written?
4. Why did Chick’s life begin to “unravel” the day his mother died?
5. What pushes Chick over the edge? Why?
6. Why is he not invited to the wedding?
7. In what month does he first try to commit suicide?
8. How many children does he have?
9. What two things does he notice about the envelope from his daughter?
10. What did the wedding photo say to Chick and why?
11. How long did he remain at work his last day? Who cared?
12. What were Chick’s parents’ names? What is his birth date? What is Chick’s full name?
13. What does Chick not do because it took courage that at the time he didn’t have?
14. Why do you suppose Chick think the crickets were laughing at him? Think in terms of being “manly.”
15. Why would he care about being out of shape if he were going to kill himself anyway? What did his profession have to do with that thought pattern?
16. Why, when HE should be dead, do you suppose Chick would see his dead mother?
17. Where did Chick’s father work? What is the significance?
18. What grade was he in when his Dad left?
19. How many times did Chick try to kill himself? How did he?
20. What did his mother do for him on the first day of school?
21. How did his parents meet?
22. Why is his mother so intrigued with words?
23. What faiths were his mother and father?
24. Chick’s mom had one plan for him and his father another. What were they?
25. What did his mother do in spite of her plan for him?
26. What did Chick see as his mother’s only flaw?
27. Chick gets scared by a dog. What does his mother do to the dog?
28. What is Charlie for Halloween? What happens during the parade that ruins his costume?
29. What did Charlie, for the first time, worry that he had damaged when he first heard his mother’s voice again?
30. What did he do when his mother called him from the back porch?
31. What causes an echo? What one thing is required for an echo? When can you hear an echo?
32. Why did his mother help him and his father did not?
33. What did Charlie’s mother do with her “something Big” record? Why?
34. What did Charlie and his sister do to the table? Why didn’t his mother get mad?
35. What did Roberta ask about the table?
36. Why did his mother cleaning his cuts burst through his defenses?
37. What does Charlie say happens when Death takes your mother?
38. What book did his mother got for him at the library?
39. What did his mother tell the librarian about children? Why was that important?
40. Why does Charlie agree with his Dad about the Ziti?
41. How did Charlie’s mother tell him and his sister that she HAD their father were divorcing? What was Charlie’s reaction?
What was Roberta’s reaction?
42. What did Charlie and his sister do when their parents fought?
43. What three things did their parents fight about?
44. How did Charlie’s mother react when he told her he wanted to play baseball after his father left?
45. How long had Charlie been without food before the eggs? What kind of meal was it, table was it, mom was it, and admonishment was it?
46. What happened to the kids after the divorce in terms of how the town treated them? What about their mother?
47. How did women view their mother after the divorce? How did men see her? How did kids see her?
48. What did Charlie’s mother do with the meal the nuns gave him? Why?
49. What did Charlie do to the boys with the binoculars? Why?
50. What did Charlie’s mother show him on the walk to her appointment? What did it represent? Why was it on the thing it was on?
Why was it important that he see it?
51. What does Charlie’s mother say when he tells her that she died?
52. What was his mothers nickname before the divorce?
53. What happened to all of his mother’s friends after the divorce?
54. What, as an adult, does Charlie realize about his mother on Christmas, New years Eve, and every other night in her life?
55. Why does Charlie expose his mother as Santa and destroy his sister’s fantasy?
56. How many times does Charlie knock on Rose’s door before she opens it?
57. What does Rose tell them she heard on the radio?
58. What did Posey mean when she said, “She went home, honey.”?
59. Why was his Mom fired from the hospital?
60. Why did Charlie hate the look in his mother’s eyes the day she got fired?
61. Why does Charlie hat the clothes his mother wears to the beauty parlor? How does she react to his comment about them?
Why was he mad in the first place?
62. Of all the things he felt disgraced about in front of his mother, what was the worst?
63. What was the lesson his mother and Rose taught him about his relationship with Maria?
64. What is Charlie’s mother’s comment about a child embarrassed by his mother?
65. What does the caller at Rose’s house ask him to do?
66. Who breaks into their house? Why is Charlie angry at his mother about it?
67. What does Charlie’s mother teach him to do at age 15 that he thought dad should have taught him to do? What happens while he is learning?
What does he tell his mother? What does she say when he is finished?
68. What message does the woman give Charlie to give his mother when Charlie and his girlfriend take Roberta trick-or-treating?
69. Why does Rose say she needs her hair done? Where does Charlie think her husband might be? Where is he really?
70. What do Charlie and his mother wear to his first day of college?
71. When did Charlie begin college?
72. Why was Charlie’s mother so excited about his first day of college?
73. What was Posey’s comment about fast food/eating out?
74. What does Charlie tell his mother over a diagonally sliced roast beef sandwich and what does she tell him?
75. What does Posey do for the first time in the letter she writes Charlie while he is in college?
76. What did Charlie say he used to dream about?
77. What two places does Charlie say he spent his childhood torn between?
78. When does Charlie’s father reappear? How does Charlie react?
79. What were the “flats”?
80. What happened when Charlie first answered the doorbell? And the second?
81. What does Miss Thelma call Charlie?
82. What do they see for the first time on the way to Miss Thelma’s house? Who do they see? What do the people have in common?
83. What does Charlie’s dad ask him to do after the away game?
84. What does Charlie find out about his Mom from Miss Thelma? Why did she do it?
85. What was Charlie’s batting average? What scout spoke with Charlie’s father? About what position?
86. What does Charlie’s dad say about college? What does Charlie picture when his Dad says that?
87. What does Charlie’s mother tell him about an education? What does he keep waiting for though?
88. What does Charlie realize he never knew about his mother when he told her about his dad coming to his games?
89. What does Posey say that makes Charlie snap at her?
90. What word does Miss Thelma say Posey said that she did not say?
91. What song does Roberta say is stupid?
92. What does the word “divertere” mean and how does it do what it means?
93. What song did Charlie “sing” at the party? Who did he meet that night? Why is the title of the song important?
94. What was Charlie’s high point in life? Low point? Who suggested the latter?
95. What did Charlie do when his mother said “Absolutely Not!”? Why did he listen to the “cadence” instead of finishing what he started?
96. What did Charlie think was the most important part of someone’s name? What made him mad about his mother’s?
97. What job did Charlie’s mother do that matter the most to her?
98. What does Miss Thelma say that makes Charlie feel ashamed? What was Charlie’s excuse for not doing it?
What does Miss Thelma say keeps her from being “forgot?
99. In her letter to Charlie on his wedding day, what does Posey tell him about vocabulary?
100. What three things does Charlie’s mother tell him about marriage?
101. What is the end of the baseball rainbow?
102. What happens to Charlie in Spring Training?
103. To whom did Charlie ship a box of baseball cards? To what did he cling to much longer than he should have?
104. What happened to Charlie’s father after Charlie got a sales job and had a child? Why?
105. Why did Charlie’s father say he and Charlie’s mother split up? What did Charlie assume from his father’s lowered eyes?
106. When they leave Miss Thelma’s house, what her grandchildren do when they pass Charlie and Posey? Why?
107. What world is Charlie’s mother in now? What does she say about people who are gone?
108. Who is it easier to talk to the closer you get to death, according to Posey? Why?
109. What happens to all the glass in Miss Thelma’s house?
110. What does Charlie’s daughter write in the guest book at her grandmother’s funeral?
111. What does Charlie say about the hours you could have spent with your mother?
112. In what two ways had Charlie never seen his mother?
113. Why was Charlie concerned with remembering the family anecdotes?
114. In whom did Charlie find his greatest joy? Why did he realize that your mother and father pass through you to your children?
115. Who called Charlie’s mother’s house during her birthday party? Why?
116. Why does Charlie call his father a thief?
117. What does Charlie do in order to play one more time? What is the last thing his mother says to him?
118. What does Charlie say you train yourself not to think about when you play sports?
119. How does Charlie’s mother defend his bar business idea?
120. What does Charlie’s father drop off at his hotel? Why is this that significant?
121. What does Charlie say you only have to do once in a baseball career to be immortalized? Why?
122. What was happening while Charlie was hitting the ball in his last game?
123. What three emotions does Charlie’s father have after the game?
124. Who found Charlie’s mother?
125. To what things did Charlie lose both parents in the same day? What does shadow refer to?
126. What does Charlie realize you are looking at when you look at your mother?
127. What question does Charlie’s mother ask him?
128. What three things happen when he blinks?
129. Who lives in the yellow building with avocado wallpaper and a champagne dressing table? Why do their hands melt together?
130. Why does Charlie’s mother request that dirt be thrown on her coffin? To whom did Charlie feel like the shovel belonged?
131. What does Charlie discover about Collingswood? How did his mother find out?
132. What still bugs Charlie’s mother about Charlie’s father?
133. What does Posey tell Charlie that she has never told him? What does Charlie ask about him?
134. Where did Charlie’s mother sit to wait for his father to come home that night? Why?
135. According to Posey, what makes a family a family?
136. What did Posey tell Charlie’s dad on the night before the corn puffs?
137. Why did Charlie “whimper off to another life” after his mother died?
138. What does Posey tell Charlie will tear him apart? What does she then tell him to do? What does she then ask him?
139. What does Charlie realize Posey has known all along about the day she died?
140. What wrong choice does Charlie realize he has made? What does his mother tell him a child should never have to do?
141. After the memory of the water fountain, what does Charlie sense his mother is doing to him again?
What question does Charlie then answer and how? And what does his mother tell him to go do?
142. With what grammatical correction does his mother leave him?
143. What does Charlie believe in the deepest part of his soul? And what can he still hear, when it is quiet?
144. To what, does Charlie say, we need to give people access?
145. What three things does Charlie say he is lucky on many levels?
146. What does Charlie believe about his mother? About one’s parents? About children? About what is behind everyone’s story? Why?
147. Who attended Charlie’s funeral? Who did not? Why is that significant?
148. What was the Italian woman’s name? And her son’s?
149. What routine did Charlie develop before he died?
150. Who is the author of Charlie’s tale?
ESSAY QUESTIONS - at least ½ page required. Complete at least 8; must include #1 & #2
1. Dissect and Analyze the poem that Charles Hanson wrote for it’s meaning as it pertains to the novel.
2. Make a connection from the poem and the fact that Charlie did not get killed over while driving drunk, jumping off the water tower, and trying to
shoot himself. Discuss in detail and relate back to what Charlie says about his life through the poem.
3. What do Chick’s experiences as a child do to the way he sees adults and their roles in life? What does it do to him as a father? Husband?
4. Are we all doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents when we become adults? Why or why not.
5. Using the definition of an echo and the echo scene information from the novel, explain how Chick’s life is an echo.
6. The song “This could be the Start of Something Big” is mentioned at two significant points in the novel. Discuss how it defines both moments and
how those moments are tied together.
7. Charlie carves his name in a table and his mother carves her prayer in a tree. Discuss how these scenes are parallel and how they are different.
8. When Charlie’s father left he was thrust into a role he had never taken on before. Discuss the role itself and the difficulties of child in that role.
Consider how Charlie might have felt and what he needed to do to fill those shoes.
9. Why did Charlie want to play baseball even after his father was gone?
10. How are small towns like metronomes? Discuss examples.
11. Why did Charlie’s mother say that going back to something you have quit is harder than you think? Why do people quit something thinking they
will ever get back to it? Do they? Is it easy? Why do we make choices without seriously considering ALL the long-term issues, instead of just the
good ones?
12. Which is harder, ascending a mountain or descending one? Why? Use that in a metaphor for life and explain in detail.
13. Posey says that you can do anything in life if you have three things; belief, hard work, and love. How true is this? Give examples of times this
theory fails and succeeds.
14. After the Old-Timer’s game, Charlie drove home with what in the back seat and what in the front? Why? Discuss.
15. Charlie finally draws comfort from the physical act of burying his head in his mother and letting her hold him. Why does this, above all else,
comfort someone?
16. The Italian woman pushes Charlie’s baseball card and his half-brother’s photo together as though they were together on her dressing table in real
life. What does Charlie realize Posey, Charlie, the Italian woman, and her son all have in common? They all longed to be loved by the same man.
When Charlie realizes this is gives him allies and causes him to realize some other things about his life. Discuss.
Copyright: Property of Genji Bailey; Created 10.2006 Last Updated 12.28.08