This is a hard conversation to read, but it's so important to the story. It helps to demonstrate the magnitude of the prejudice that this little boy had to deal with growing up.

This makes you wonder if they were secretly hoping either the son or mother would overhear them and understand enough to know what they were saying, or if they were really that naive.

It's interesting that through his mother's magic these creatures are not only animated but truly alive, they feel pain and appear to have feelings. Later on in the story, after his mother dies and the animals stop moving, he says their animation must have just been his imagination, this made me feel almost heartbroken, these stories of his childhood are so sweet and heartwarming I want so desperately for them to be real.

I really like that instead of just throwing the buffalo away and asking his mother for another one he worked so hard to fix him, it really show how much he cherished these animals.

I like how after having judged his mother for this he then later compares his trying to get a job as him putting himself up to be bought. It shows character growth and empathy for his mothers situation.

I don't know if it's necessarily relevant to the story but I find it strange that why looking for a wife, his father described her eyes as being those of a child. Was he trying to say she looked innocent and in need of help?

I appreciate how much foreshadowing there is in this story. It's interesting to see this sentence so soon after he describes such a fond memory of his mother.

I appreciate that he says "I didn't know this at the time" it not only demonstrates how children tend to easily accept the unbelievable it also makes one wonder when he realized that she was magical, was it as he got older or was it not until after he read the letter?

Something I really like about this story is how it made the reader feel something different during the beginning, middle, and end. after finishing the story this sentence is heartbreaking.

I appreciate how the entire world seems to come together to learn and understand these aliens.

The fact that she knows her child will die at the age of 25, but chooses to make the same decisions regardless demonstrates not only the love of a mother and child, but also relates strongly to the questions posed later on in the story about free will.

I'm curious to know what the downside of the aliens learning english would be. I understand wanting to keep things from them, from a government perspective, but how could them knowing english be used against us.

I don't know if it was on purpose but I like the way the author pointed out that he's wearing corduroy where later the author uses corduroy to describe the skin of the aliens.

After finishing the story I still don't quite understand how this language helped her to know the future, I also wonder if any of the other scientist were also able to know their future.

I find this interesting, does any child really want to hear the story of the night they were conceived?

I appreciate the way that everytime she remembers a moment in her future daughters life her daughter is not only a different age but it does not follow a chronological order, this demonstrates how she later describes the Heptapods seeing the past future and present simultaneously.

When first reading this story I was very bothered by the strange use of tense, but after finishing the story, it makes sense, these tense can exist simultaneously because that is the way the Heptapods think.

I can't understand why a lack of smell from the looking glass would be strange.

This statement appears to assume that the aliens are exactly like humans in the way they take in and analyze information and therefore would need the same methods in order to understand our language. I feel like often in Sci Fi aliens tend to be much more intelligent than humans and almost all knowing. While being all knowing is a little extreme, I'm surprised that Dr. Banks is so quick to hold them to the same standards and limitations of humans.

I really love this sentence, it's very poetic and creates an eerie atmosphere of foreshadowing.