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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. Who calls Meg while she is in the hotel room with Molly?

2. What book does Beth read while she is at Meg's London flat?

3. Besides her weight loss, what physical clue to Lorelei's ill health does Meg notice during Easter of 1999?

4. Where does Beth discover Rhys when she gets back to Bird House and is getting ready to take a shower?

5. In April of 2000, on Easter Sunday, what does Beth promise herself she will accomplish before Easter of 2001?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Colin's reaction to the art wall show that even early in the children's lives he is struggling with Lorelei's collecting?

2. How does the craft box demonstrate how Lorelei's collecting evolves into hoarding?

3. What similarities does Meg see between Alfie and Rhys, and when was she most worried about these similarities?

4. When Meg and Molly go in to start clearing out Lorelei's house, why is it such a relief to them when they reach the landing of the stairs?

5. When Molly asks Meg whether she would have liked Rhys,what is Meg's response?

6. What is the one thing about Lorelei that Vicky cannot understand, and how does she try to reconcile herself to it?

7. What surprises Beth about Molly's existence, and what does it make her realize about herself?

8. What lie does Vicky tell Meg about Lorelei's hoarding during Easter of 1999, and why does she tell this lie?

9. What is foreshadowed by Lorelei and Vicky's conversation after Vicky confesses to having given some of Lorelei's things to charity?

10. Based on Lorelei's emails, what seems to be true about her own childhood and its impact on the way she parents her own children?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

On page 142, Beth says that her family members are "like a badly planned dinner party." What does she mean? Do you agree? What are the differences among them that she would point to? What deeper things do they have in common? Write an essay in which you consider how different the Birds really are from one another and what significance exists in the attributes they share. Support your claims with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

Essay Topic 2

The title of this novel focuses the reader's attention on Bird House itself. Why? How does the title relate to the book's theme? Write an essay that analyzes the book's title and Bird House's central relationship to the book's concerns with family, generational dysfunction, renewal, and personal growth. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

Essay Topic 3

What is Meg's role in the Bird family? Why is she the one who gets off to the most successful start in life, and why is she generally able to hold her life together despite the obstacles in her way? Does Meg know herself and what she needs better than the other Birds? How does this impact her ability to understand and relate to other people? Does Meg know herself well enough to follow through on her beliefs, or do her actions sometimes contradict her beliefs? Would you say that she is better or worse than other characters, in this regard? Write an essay that explores how the failings that seem to plague the Bird family either do or do not plague Meg, and that analyzes why Meg seems bound for a more successful life from the start. Support your ideas with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

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