1. What is the Merlin Effect? How does it affect each of the characters in the story?

2. Choice is an important theme in the story. What choices do Kate, Merlin, Jim, and Terry make throughout the story? Why is Merlin's Horn so tied to choice?

3. Does Kate think power is important?

How is power represented in the story?

4. When Isabella asks Kate what her goals are, Kate tells her she would like to create something. When Kate chooses to return the Horn to the ocean, what do you think she has decided about her goals?

5. Barron uses figurative language to create the setting and characters in this story. Find examples of figurative language devices, including simile, metaphor, and personification and explain how they are used in the text.

6. Barron says that he was very conscious of needing to create an authentic female voice for Kate...