Clap When You Land

Camino Rios loves the water, her tía, her island, and spending every summer with her papi

when he visits her in the Dominican Republic. Yahaira Rios lives in New York City and idolizes

her father but has recently had a hard time looking him in the face. When they both receive

the news that their father’s plane has crashed, they know that their lives will never be the same.

Just like that, these two girls are thrown into a reality where their father is dead and it seems

their dreams are quickly slipping away. How do you cope with losing the father you love while

reckoning with the secrets he kept from you? What will it mean to be a sister to someone

you’ve never met? And what will Camino and Yahaira do to keep their dreams alive?

Book club questions for Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

The author writes the first part of the book switching between the sisters’ points of view in each chapter. In the last section of the book, however, their perspectives are combined, and we often have to figure out who is speaking by context clues. Why do you think the author chose to structure the book in this way? How does your understanding of the sisters change when you start seeing them through each other’s perspective?

Camino and Yahaira both have complicated feelings about suddenly having a sibling. What are some examples of their conflicting feelings in the text? How do these feelings change over time?

Both Camino and Yahaira have close, trusting relationships with other female friends, family, and/or girlfriends. What are some moments in the book where women show up, protect, and care for one another? How do Camino and Yahaira define sisterhood? How do these views change throughout the book? What is sisterhood to you?

What are some of the ways that Camino and Yahaira describe the way they feel after losing their father? What are the similarities and differences in how the sisters grieve for their father while trying to understand him? How does their grief change over time and throughout the book? The plane crash in this book does not impact only Camino and Yahaira. How does the island react when Camino’s papi passes? How is Yahaira’s neighborhood affected by the crash? How are Dominican people everywhere affected?

“My father was the one who always threw the get-togethers, & even in death, he brings us all home” (pg. 134). How does their father’s death bring everyone “home”? How can death bring people together, both literally and figuratively? How can death and grieving change relationships between the people who are left behind? How is this shown in the book?

What does Yahaira mean when she says “in the real world I am not treated as a lady or a queen, as a defender or opponent but as a girl so many want to strike off the board” (pg. 94)? How are Yahaira and Camino treated as disposable by the men in this novel? How are they controlled by men? How does the way you see yourself differ from who the world believes you to be? What do you do when those two things don’t match up?

What makes Yahaira feel like her body is not her body? (pg. 176) How does this experience change Yahaira’s feelings about winning her chess tournament? How do Tia’s assumptions about El Cero’s attention (pg. 155) affect Camino?

What silences both sisters when they want to talk with the adults in their lives about what’s happening to them?

Clap When You Land Book Club Questions PDF

Click here for a printable PDF of the Clap When You Land discussion questions

This recommended reading and discussion guide are shared in partnership with Harper Collins.