The Book of the Dead

What is the purpose of Annie and her father's trip to Florida?

• to deliver a piece of Annie's artwork to a buyer

• to meet her father's hero, a Haitian television star

• to give her father a chance to tell Annie the truth

• to take a much-needed vacation from city life

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What happens while Annie's father is missing?

• Local police search frantically for him.

• Annie's mother calls her to reassure her.

• He throws Annie's sculpture into a lake.

• He sneaks off to visit the Fonteneaus.

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What does Annie learn about her father?

• that he has never really respected her art

• that he tricked her mother into marrying him

• that he wishes she were a better daughter, more like Gabrielle

• that he was a part of the Haitian dictatorship, not a victim of it

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Which two sentences describe why Haitians are like Egyptians, according to the narrator's father in paragraph 58?

58 “The Egyptians, they was like us,” he likes to say. The Egyptians worshiped their gods in many forms and were often ruled by foreigners. The pharaohs were like the dictators he had fled. But what he admires most about the Egyptians is the way they mourned.

• They worshiped many gods.

• They were ruled by foreigners.

• They had a book about death.

• They mummified their dead.

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What does the oxymoron lovingly scolding reveal about the parents' relationship?

• Even though Annie thinks her parents' relationship is strong, she's afraid they might separate.

• Even though Annie's parents don't always approve of each other's actions, they still care about each other.

• Even though Annie's father listens to her mother, he resents the way she speaks to him.

• Even though Annie's mother is on the phone, it feels like she's in the room with them.

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How does the historical context of the story develop the father's point of view about himself?

• He suffered torture in a dictator's prison in Haiti, so he thinks he should be treated as a victim.

• He suffered torture in a dictator's prison in Haiti, so he thinks he must forget his past.

• He worked for Haiti's dictator as a prison guard, so he thinks he must go to prison himself.

• He worked for Haiti's dictator as a prison guard, so he thinks he does not deserve honor.

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Read this sentence from paragraph 142.

“Those who give the blows may try to forget, but those who carry the scars
must remember.”

What meaning does the proverb have in the story?

• The father is marked forever by the wrong he has done.

• Everyone involved in a dictatorship winds up scarred by it.

• Children never forget the wrongs done to them by their parents.

• Annie and her father will always carry the shame of having insulted Gabrielle and her family.

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What theme is revealed by the figurative language in these lines?

“We were like two seeds planted in a rock . . . but somehow when our daughter, Annie, came, we took root.” (paragraph 31)

“He was a seed thrown into a rock, and you and me, Annie, we helped push a flower out of the rock.” (paragraph 101)

• Those who have suffered the most love the strongest.

• Some challenges in life can never be overcome.

• Children are their parents' hope for the future.

• It is possible to flourish after any hardship.

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Annie's artwork is similar to the Egyptian art of mummification because it -

• preserves loved ones

• endures forever

• explains death

• is in museums

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In paragraph 82, why does Annie's father mention the Book of the Dead?

81 He smiles, grateful, I think, that I still recall his passions.

82 “Annie,” he asks, “do you remember when I read to you from ‘The Book of the Dead’?”

83 “Are you dying?” I say to my father. “Because I can only forgive you for this if you are. You can’t take this back.”

• He wants to interrupt the silence and doesn't know what else to talk about.

• He feels like the judge who determined whether someone entered the other world.

• He feels like the heavy-hearted dead who is unworthy to enter the other world.

• He wants to convey to his daughter what she should do with his body when he dies.

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