Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What post-apocalyptic novels have you read or heard of? Try to list at least three.

Teaching Suggestion: The Girl Who Owned a City anticipates the widespread popularity of post-apocalyptic novels in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Examples from middle grade or young adult fiction include The Hunger Games, The Last Kids on Earth, The City of Ember, and Life As We Knew It while the genre as a whole encompasses works like The Road, Oryx and Crake, The Fifth Season, Station Eleven, The Stand, etc. However, while many of these works are also examples of dystopian fiction, The Girl Who Owned a City imagines rebuilding society in something like its current form. Use this prompt to spark discussion about why post-apocalyptic fiction appeals to readers and what ideas it allows us to engage with.

Helpful links:

• Post Apocalyptic Books on GoodReads
• “End of the World as We Know It: Apocalyptic, Post-Apocalyptic, and Dystopian Worlds” 2019 New York Public Library article by Amanda Pagan discussing the post-apocalyptic genre and listing popular examples of it

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