The Deep Dark

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Talk with students about how secrets affect the characters in The Deep Dark. Ask them to share how keeping secrets or hiding parts of their own identity affects their own lives. How does it feel to have a secret? How does it affect you emotionally? How does sharing a secret make you feel? What does it take for you to be willing to share a secret?

Now that Mags has brought her secret to light, what’s next for her? Have students continue her story either in comic or prose form, exploring how what she has learned about herself would impact her future choices, what community she will build around herself, and what challenges she may face.

Questions for Discussion or Reflective Writing

1. What do you think of Molly Knox Ostertag’s visual creative choices? What do you notice about her illustration style and the way the color palette shifts? How do the text and images work together to convey her characters’ emotions and inner lives?
2. Why does Mags feel that she needs to be strong all the time and can’t show weakness or the pain that she is experiencing? How does all the responsibility she shoulders affect her? Why does Nessa coming back into her life make her question the burdens she’s been resigned to carry?
3. How does the author use metaphor and allegory? How do you interpret the monster at the center of the story? How many meanings do you find? 
4. Magical realism is when a story includes fantastic events within a realistic narrative. How does the author make the magical elements in this novel credible? What are some other books featuring magical realism that you’ve enjoyed?
5. What questions does The Deep Dark leave unanswered? How do those questions relate to Molly Knox Ostertag’s author’s note about “the first careful steps of unraveling?”

Related Resources

First Chapter Fridays: The Deep Dark video from Follett
Empathy and Awareness Activities from The Trevor Project