1. What other accounts do we have of Merlin's childhood? How do they compare to Merlin?

2. Yolen has written about Merlin in other books, but her other portraits of Merlin, such as that found in The Dragon's Boy (1993), are different from that in Passager, Hobby, and Merlin. How do they differ from the Merlin of Merlin? How are they similar? Are their themes similar to those of Merlin? What does Yolen seem to be trying to achieve with her depictions of Merlin?

3. In the medieval Arthurian tales, who was Uther Pendragon? How does he compare in those tales with the figure in Yolen's Merlin? Would he have allowed the slaughter of the forest people, as he seems to do in Merlin?

4. Merlin's increasingly strong supernatural abilities are wish fulfillment in Merlin.

That is, young people are supposed to see themselves as...