BookBright%20-%20Amber%20McBride.jpg)
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSMoth is a seventeen-year-old Black girl living with her aunt in a Virginia suburb, still carrying the weight of a car accident two summers ago that she survived and her parents and brother did not. She has stopped dancing, stopped eating much, and made herself as small as possible, convinced that living too fully was somehow the reason death passed her by. When a Navajo boy named Sani shows up in her homeroom near the end of junior year, he sees her in a way no one else does. After her aunt abruptly leaves for the summer and a crisis brings Sani to her door battered and desperate, the two of them climb into his Jeep Wrangler and drive from Virginia to the Navajo Nation, trading stories, writing songs, and holding each other together across a country's worth of road.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Me (Moth)
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 Me (Moth). 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 is a quiet new boy with long black hair tied in a knot mocked as wolf boy?
✓ Answer
Me (Moth) by Amber McBride
Sani shows up late in the school year with a Navajo bun and a sealed mouth, and a girl named Ashley taunts him by calling him wolf boy. His arrival is what first pulls Moth back toward living.
- First half
In what book does a girl watch through a window as a stepfather punches a boy after a glass shatters?
✓ Answer
Me (Moth) by Amber McBride
Stomping ten houses down, Moth sees Sani's family at dinner through a picture window, watches him slam a glass until it cuts him, and sees his stepfather strike him. The scene reveals the violence Sani lives with at home.
- First half
In what book does a girl hang a flannel bag of wormwood and ginger root from a car's rearview mirror?
✓ Answer
Me (Moth) by Amber McBride
Before the road trip, Moth stuffs wormwood for protection and ginger root for adventure into a flannel bag tied to the mirror. The Hoodoo charm is her way of asking the ancestors to keep the car safe, since cars terrify her after the crash.
- Second half
In what book does a crafty animal steal Water Monster's baby and cause a flood?
✓ Answer
Me (Moth) by Amber McBride
In Sani's Navajo creation story, Coyote steals Water Monster's child, so Water Monster rains and rains in grief, flooding the Third World and forcing the people to climb higher. Coyote is the trickster who keeps disrupting the worlds.
- Second half
In what book do two people convince themselves that swaying on top of someone's feet does not count as dancing?
✓ Answer
Me (Moth) by Amber McBride
Back at the motel after the Bluebird Cafe, Sani convinces Moth that if she stands on his feet and sways, it is not really dancing. For a moment she feels full on movement again, something she gave up after the crash.
- Near the end
In what book does a girl learn the proper way to make a sandwich is peanut butter on both slices?
✓ Answer
Me (Moth) by Amber McBride
At his father's house in the Navajo Nation, Sani teaches Moth his rule for sandwiches, peanut butter on both slices and only one scoop of jelly, and Moth adds that it keeps them from blending together. The small, careful ritual is a quiet, ordinary moment of closeness.
