BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTwelve-year-old McKinley O'Dair has spent weeks sewing her own costume for the Time Hop, the yearly festival that turns her Pennsylvania school into a celebration of one year from history, and this year's theme is 1993, the same year her strict, schedule-bound dad was in sixth grade. When her dad pulls her off the fashion show stage in front of the whole town for skipping her one job, watching her grandmother, McKinley runs, ducks through a doorway to hide, and comes out somewhere she does not recognize. The lockers are the wrong color, nobody has heard of a cell phone, and a sign-up sheet on the bulletin board is dated 6/1/93. Stuck a quarter century before she was even born, with no way to get home, McKinley has to build a life as a made up kid named Mickey while getting to know the people she loves as sixth graders themselves, including a prankster with her father's same gray eyes and a fast talking new friend who somehow believes her impossible story right away. Back in 2018, an unresolved fight with her best friend is still hanging over her, and she cannot stop wondering what will happen to the grandmother she loves, who once had bigger plans than the ones McKinley has always known about.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Rewind
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 Rewind. 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 girl study for a trivia championship while propped upside down on the couch?
✓ Answer
Rewind by Lisa Graff
Meg says the extra blood flow to her brain helps her concentrate while she drills questions for FACTS. It is one of the tricks she uses to work around her learning disability, along with the memory stories McKinley's dad taught her.
- First half
In what book does a girl's face turn the color of water left behind by overboiled broccoli?
✓ Answer
Rewind by Lisa Graff
McKinley finally tells twelve year old Jackie who she is going to marry, and Jackie snaps a pencil inside the sharpener and announces she is going to puke. Jackie then starts threatening to change that future, which terrifies McKinley because it would mean Meg never gets born.
- First half
In what book do two girls recognize their grumpy teacher in an old photo of a bell-bottomed stranger?
✓ Answer
Rewind by Lisa Graff
The young man in the newspaper picture has a buzz cut and a black turtleneck that look nothing like the suits around him, and the article calls him Rufus. Once McKinley connects that name to Mr. Jones, she realizes her least favorite teacher has been through exactly what she is going through.
- Second half
In what book does a boy spell an insult down an arcade game's high score screen?
✓ Answer
Rewind by Lisa Graff
Billy racks up the top five scores in Donkey Kong and uses the initials to stack a tall, skinny message calling Jackie a hairy man. It is the moment McKinley's matchmaking plan collapses, because Jackie storms out furious at both boys.
- Second half
In what book does a boy insist, "I don't have dyslexia," to a girl trying to help him?
✓ Answer
Rewind by Lisa Graff
McKinley assumes Billy already knows, and she is stunned to learn nobody has ever tested him. She tells him to go see the school counselor and lists the help he could get, and by the time he walks off it is at least not a flat no.
- Near the end
In what book does a girl shout "Frosted monkeys!" instead of cursing?
✓ Answer
Rewind by Lisa Graff
McKinley smacks her wrist on the edge of a hospital chair arm and lets it fly. She and Meg started saying it as a joke and then somehow ended up using it for real.
