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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What game of pretend did Janisse and her brothers play inside the old school bus?

2. What elements of the Borderlanders' lives led them to have migratory habits?

3. What is the oldest age to which longleaf pines can live?

4. When tree farming became common practice in 1940, why was the longleaf pine rarely planted by tree farmers?

5. How often did the car crusher make a visit to the family junkyard?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the Thingfinders Club play into the memoir's message regarding ecology?

2. When Janisse wrote that her father Frank was a "mechanic in the word's truest sense," what did she mean?

3. Due to their parents' religious beliefs and their resulting family rules, what were some of the practices forbidden to Janisse and her siblings?

4. How does Janisse describe her feelings toward her father when he was mentally unwell?

5. What elements did Frank consider crucial to the business of buying?

6. Why do people call certain parts of the wood of the longleaf pine "fat-lightered"?

7. What descriptions of her homeland does Janisse give in order to support her claim that her "homeland is about as ugly as a place gets" (13)?

8. What are some ways in which Janisse shows her parents that she is a tomboy who likes to be outside in nature more than she enjoys any other activities?

9. How does the passage regarding the bank robber Foster Sellers exhibit the theme of identity prevalent throughout the memoir?

10. Besides the fact that he thought it had better prices than other stores, why did Frank shop at Winn-Dixie?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the author's purpose for describing her love for the carnivorous pitcher plant in such great detail within the chapter entitled How the Heart Opens. What lessons does she learn from the plant, how does she apply these lessons within her life, and how does she use the depiction of her relationship with the pitcher plant to support the overall themes of the memoir?

Essay Topic 2

Explain the significance of the memoir's title. What does it mean and how does it contain all of the main themes put forth within the whole of the memoir?

Essay Topic 3

What parallels does Janisse Ray draw between a junkyard and the wilderness throughout the memoir? How does this unique viewpoint help to get across her message to the reader concerning environmentalism and the role humans ought to inhabit in relation to nature?

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