BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTwelve-year-old Edie Green has always known she is part Native American through her adoptive mother, but the question of where exactly her family comes from has never been fully answered. That changes one summer when Edie and her two best friends sneak into the attic and find a cardboard box marked with a capital E, filled with head shots, handwritten letters, and postcards belonging to a young woman who looks strikingly like Edie and shares her name. Edith Graham, whoever she was, clearly matters to Edie's family, but her parents have kept her a secret, and the more Edie digs, the more she realizes there is a whole chapter of her history that no one has told her yet.
Free Battle of the Books questions for I Can Make This Promise
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about I Can Make This Promise. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a kindergarten teacher kneel before a tall girl and ask her, "What are you?"?
✓ Answer
I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day
In the prologue, Edie remembers Mrs. Vespucci asking where she is originally from on the first day of kindergarten. This question about her identity follows her for years and sets up the whole story.
- First half
In what book does an uncle describe quitting commercial fishing because too many salmon were taken one year?
✓ Answer
I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day
Uncle Phil tells how a record salmon haul left the waters nearly empty the next season, so he left the business for restoration work. He says the story is secretly connected to the family mystery.
- First half
In what book does a girl learn that a long-ago relative landed a speaking role in a Western film?
✓ Answer
I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day
A 1974 letter reveals the other Edith was cast in a Western called When the West Was Theirs, her first time speaking on screen. The discovery proves she really did appear in a Hollywood movie.
- Second half
In what book does a girl pedal her bike home furiously, racing her tears before they fall?
✓ Answer
I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day
After the painful argument that ends her friendship with Amelia, Edie grabs her bike and races home through the streets. She is trying to outrun the tears she knows are coming.
- Second half
In what book does a mom reveal that an orphanage named her Lisa before her parents adopted her?
✓ Answer
I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day
Edie's mom shares that she had no name at birth and was called Lisa at the orphanage. The Miller grandparents adopted her at six months old, making her Lisa Miller.
- Near the end
In what book does a girl sketch a long cedar plank building on the beach she has never seen?
✓ Answer
I Can Make This Promise by Christine Day
At the historic site, Edie draws the landscape and improvises the lost longhouse in long, straight strokes like a giant log cabin. Her parents gently point out that her drawing is missing the people.
