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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSMexikid is a graphic memoir, told through comic panels, based on the childhood of its author, Pedro Martín. Pedro, called Peter by people outside the family, is the seventh of nine kids in a big Mexican American family in Watsonville, California, and he spends most of his free time drawing superheroes and collecting action figures. One night his father, Apá, announces that the whole family, all eleven of them, will pile into their aging Winnebago motorhome and drive over two thousand miles to Jalisco, Mexico, to bring Pedro's Abuelito, an old man who lived through the Mexican Revolution, back to live with them in California for good. Pedro barely knows his grandfather and worries they will have nothing in common, but family stories about Abuelito's Revolution-era past have Pedro picturing him as a real-life superhero. As the family crosses the border, gets shaken down by corrupt guards, and finally reaches Abuelito's hometown, Pedro sets out to learn the truth behind the legend and figure out where he himself fits between two countries.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Mexikid
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 Mexikid. 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 mother keep bananas in the bathroom cabinet and hand out snapped halves?
✓ Answer
Mexikid by Pedro Martín
Amá tucks bananas into every corner of the motorhome, from the dashboard shelf to the cabinet by the toilet paper. Because they are always available nobody wants one, and Pedro says a snapped half is even worse than a bathroom banana.
- First half
In what book does a father complain that a cockroach on the menu keeps changing price?
✓ Answer
Mexikid by Pedro Martín
Apá opens his menu at a small canyon town restaurant and finds a live roach crawling across the prices. He deadpans that it cost two pesos a minute ago and refuses to pay five for a roach that size, until the waiter flicks it away.
- First half
In what book does a barber explain that outlawed priests celebrated mass in caves?
✓ Answer
Mexikid by Pedro Martín
Don Felipe is cutting hair in Pegueros when he starts telling the boys about the Cristeros Rebellion. The government had closed the churches and banned all services, so the priests held mass underground, and the story is heading straight toward the day Abuelito was almost hanged.
- Second half
In what book does a boy broadcast a show tune over a CB radio to torture his siblings?
✓ Answer
Mexikid by Pedro Martín
Pedro gets even for the ear squirting by cueing up Shipoopi from the one tape the family had listened to the entire trip and playing it into the departing truck. His siblings shout that it is stuck in their heads forever, and Pedro shrugs that he learned from the worst.
- Second half
In what book does a boy rest his hand on a coffin next to his grandfather's hand?
✓ Answer
Mexikid by Pedro Martín
On the bumpy dirt road back from the cemetery, Abuelito steadies the little casket and Pedro quietly does the same without being asked. Lila had told him that stepping up might mean something very small and gentle, and this turns out to be it.
- Near the end
In what book does an imagined superhero grandfather shout, "Forget Palm Sunday! It's Fist Friday"?
✓ Answer
Mexikid by Pedro Martín
After being cheated on the fake fireworks, the brothers picture Abuelito as a Catholic Hulk pounding the seller and all of his cousins. The daydream is Pedro's way of insisting that his quiet grandfather is a genuine superhero.
