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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. How long does Bride stay in her car after she wrecks?

2. How does Booker describe his family?

3. Who does Booker say has become his only judge?

4. When Bride thinks of her response to Booker’s statement that she was not the woman he wanted, what does she compare herself to?

5. How does Queen explain the effect Adam’s death had on Booker’s life?

Short Essay Questions

1. What precipitates Booker’s departure from his family home?

2. How does Bride end up at Steve and Evelyn’s house with Rain?

3. What is the importance of Bride saying she felt ‘colonized’ by Booker?

4. What common thread does the narrator say Bride sees in Booker dumping her and in Sylvia Huxley beating her?

5. What advice does Queen give Booker after Adam’s funeral?

6. How does Booker’s life get turned around from despair back toward hope?

7. What book does Booker plan to write?

8. Why is Booker beating a man up, at the beginning of Chapter 14?

9. What are Booker’s family’s Saturday morning conferences like?

10. How does Bride describe the atmosphere in her mother’s house?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a character sketch of the author based on her style and content. What values does she hold dear? What are her hopes and fears? What kind of person do you think she is? Anchor your sketch in passages in the book.

Essay Topic 2

Research the national statistics regarding child abuse or racist violence in America. How accurately does Toni Morrison represent this issue and the related issues? What are the advantages and disadvantages of addressing these issues in fiction?

Essay Topic 3

Evaluate God Help the Child as a book about race and prejudices surrounding skin color. What are its strengths and weaknesses as a book about this theme? Does the book advance an agenda? Does it not advance an agenda enough?

(see the answer keys)

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