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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 subjects are featured in the majority of the posters hanging on Maya's bedroom walls?

2. When the reader first meets Joaquin, for how long has he lived with his current foster parents, Mark and Linda?

3. What does Grace say that both Max and his father do when they are angry?

4. How does Max feel about his father?

5. Due to his extreme discomfort with the environment of Ana's office, where do the two begin to meet instead?

Short Essay Questions

1. What has always been the strategy Grace's parents have used in regards to her status as an adopted child?

2. What simile does the narrator use to depict the careful way in which Grace's father tells her that she has biological siblings?

3. How does the author demonstrate the difference between Grace's high school days before Peach and her experiences at school after Peach's birth?

4. What aspect of Maya's character causes her to qualify as a member of a marginalized community?

5. Discuss an instance when Joaquin experiences self-loathing.

6. What two aspects of Maya's own identity does she think about during her long sleepless night after meeting Joaquin?

7. After two weeks of agony spent missing Peach, what desire brings Grace out of her depression?

8. What causes Grace to lie to Maya and Joaquin about her lengthy absence from school?

9. What quality of Maya and Grace's appearance had Joaquin known to expect even before meeting them for the first time?

10. How does Grace spend homecoming night of her junior year, and how does the night differ from her previous expectations?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explicate the theme of family bonds within the novel. What is the author's message regarding family bonds and how do you know?

Essay Topic 2

What is the message of Robin Benway's novel Far From the Tree concerning the link between family bonds and emotional stability?

Essay Topic 3

What is the author's message regarding motherhood and what themes does the author employ in order to send these messages to the reader?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,086 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample