Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness.

Select any longstanding issue in your local community and discuss it in terms of vicious and virtuous cycles. What actions have contributed to each cycle? What are ways you could contribute to the virtuous cycle that resolves that issue?

Discuss the way Green chooses to depict Henry and his family members throughout the book. How does Green present Henry beyond the experience of his disease? How does he complicate parental love through Henry’s parents?

How might you compare the global tuberculosis crisis, as Green describes it, to the global COVID-19 pandemic? Respond by discussing the impact of the pandemic on your country or state. Did your local healthcare system employ a treatment program based on control or care?