Trevor has said that he is not interested in philosophical or psychological questions, but readers will find many opportunities to discuss these issues in his fiction. Readers should work closely with the text to suggest interpretations of individual stories, to compare two stories that share similar themes, and to consider these twelve stories as a group.

1. In a Trevor story there is usually a moment when a character must make a choice that will change his or her life.

Select any story and imagine how the conclusion might be different had the character made another choice. For instance, what if Timothy's parents had refused to play along with Eddie's deception about Timothy's illness? What if the two thugs in "A Bit of Business" had decided to kill Mr. Livingston?

2. Some of the scenes in these stories are darkly comic: for example, the conversations in "Child's Play...