1. What other accounts of Merlin's childhood are there? How do they compare to Hobby?

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

3. What is the dream of two dragons about in the original stories about Merlin? How does Yolen alter it in Hobby and Merlin?

4. The name "Ambrosius" is borrowed from ancient chronicles of the era when Angles, Saxons, and other Germanic peoples were invading Britain—the late 400s and early to mid 500s. Who is he in the ancient chronicles? What...