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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. Why do people in Rain Valley often go silent when Cal's wife Lisa is mentioned?

2. What vow does Julia make to Girl on the night she researches the subject of feral children?

3. How many blocks in length is the town of Rain Valley?

4. Julia and Ellie's mother had confided in which character(s) about the deepest secrets of her marriage?

5. The narrator states that for Julia, everything "in the past year, every thought and deed, led her back to" (51) what emotion?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the piano symbolize within the narrative?

2. Who is Amber and what had she done prior to the novel's opening?

3. In what way does Hannah connect the theme of secrecy to the nature of small towns?

4. How does a maple tree figure into Chapter 3 and into the discovery of Girl?

5. Name one theme depicted within the epigraph of Magic Hour.

6. What kinds of objects terrify Girl and how do Julia, Ellie, Peanut and Max address the problem when they move Girl to Ellie's house?

7. What is elective mutism?

8. How does Ellie feel about hosting the press conference in Rain Valley?

9. Name two things the media is said to have ignored about Julia's situation.

10. How does the motif of dreams enter the narrative in Chapter 8?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Hannah's purpose for juxtaposing at least two different locations in a particular way within the text of Magic Hour.

Essay Topic 2

What message does Hannah send within the pages of Magic Hour concerning the link between altruism and emotional health?

Essay Topic 3

Sensory details are used frequently by Hannah in order to create vivid pictures of each character's progression through the narrative of Magic Hour. Choose three scenes in which sensory details are heavily used and discuss how the sensory details used serve Hannah’s creation of vivid characters to populate the narrative.

(see the answer keys)

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