Is the verdict a fair one, in your opinion?.

What about the Amish culture is similar to “English” culture? What is the most different?.

Which Amish character in this book forgives the most? Who is the most unyielding?

Forgiveness is a basic tenet in the Amish faith.

What examples support this? In what places in the book does this not happen, and how does it affect the society?

The Amish base much on the concept of Gelassenheit, or humility, and putting others before yourself.

Was Aaron Fisher justified in cutting Jacob out of the family?.

Do the actions of the men in this book aid or detract from the growth of the female characters? Explain.

Jacob Fisher and Leda are two characters who bridge diverse worlds in this novel.

What role does Hannah's ghost play in forming Katie's actions? Sarah's?.

To what extent is Katie responsible for what happens to the infant?.

Does the American legal system have the right to govern a group that lives separate from American society?.

In what ways does immersing herself in Amish culture alter Ellie's perception of the case? Of Katie?.

What character has the most to learn during the course of this novel? Why?.

Perhaps the story's quietude is appropriate, given its magnificently painted backdrop and distinctive characters, but one can't help wishing that the spark igniting the book's opening pages had built into a full-fledged blaze. Very little action occurs beyond the initial setup, though the questions remain: Who was the father of Katie's child? And did she smother the newborn? Told from both third-person omniscient and first-person (Ellie's) vantages, the story rolls leisurely through the trial preparations, the results of which are repeated, tediously, in the courtroom.

Living with the Amish necessitates some adjustments for both parties, but Katie and Ellie become fast friends in spite of their differences. However, to meet bail stipulations, she volunteers as Katie's guardian (since Kate's strict parents reject her) and moves in with the Fishers. Ellie, who has retreated to Leda's farm in Paradise to reconsider her life-she successfully defends guilty clients-embarks on the case reluctantly: at 39, she wants nothing more than to have a child. Katie Fisher, 18, denies not only having committed the murder but even having borne the baby, whose body is found in the Fishers' calving pen, and she sticks to her story, even when she is quizzed by Ellie Hathaway, the high-powered Philadelphia attorney who undertakes Katie's defense as a favor to Leda, an aunt she and the young woman share. Though it begins as the quietly electrifying story of an unmarried Amish teenager who gives birth to a baby she is accused of then smothering, Picoult's latest (after Keeping Faith) settles into an ordinary trial epic, albeit one centered intriguingly on an Amish dairy farm near Lancaster, Pa.

Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult