2. What area is the ibis native to?
(a) The American South.
(b) Canada and the American North.
(c) Africa.
(d) South America to Florida

3. When Brother asks "What are the words that can solder cracked pride?" (11), what is he comparing words to?
(a) The metal used in welding.
(b) A salesperson in a store.
(c) A person in the army.
(d) The paste that holds bricks together.

4. When Brother comments that "Hope no longer hid in the dark palmetto thicket but perched like a cardinal in the lacy toothbrush tree, brilliantly visible" (3), what two literary techniques are being used?
(a) Irony and understatement.
(b) Hyperbole and sarcasm.
(c) Metaphor and imagery.
(d) Personification and simile.

5. What is Brother's real name?
(a) William Armstrong.
(b) It is never given.
(c) Robert Graves.
(d) James Hurst.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Brother say causes him to run home during the storm?

2. In what year does Brother train Doodle?

3. What does the reader learn about Doodle from his story about Peter?

4. When does the family finally bring Doodle out to be with the rest of the family?

5. Even though it seems hopeless, why does Brother say he keeps trying to teach Doodle to walk?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does "Brother" go about teaching Doodle to walk?

2. How does Daddy react to the hurricane, and what emotions do his reactions cause in his sons?

3. Toward the end of summer, how does "Brother" say that he and Doodle are feeling about the training, and why do they keep going?

4. What changes in the narrator's life when Daddy makes Doodle a cart?

5. When the boys are almost ready to show the family that Doodle can walk and they keep hinting that they have a big secret, what does Nicey tell them and what is its thematic significance?

6. When Doodle collapses during their "training," what conversation do he and "Brother" have and how does the conversation show their different attitudes about Doodle's disability?

7. When Mama tells "Brother" that Doodle might be mentally disabled, what does "Brother" plan to do, and what changes his mind?

8. What future do "Brother" and Doodle imagine for themselves at Old Woman Sawmp?

9. What "training" plan does "Brother" come up with for Doodle, and what is his motive?

10. How does Doodle die?

(see the answer keys)

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