BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTwelve-year-old Simi Singh has just been named captain of her school's field hockey team in Punjab, India, and she is dreaming of the national youth championship in Delhi. But her family is already a target. Her mother, Henna, is Muslim and her father, Gurbeer, is Sikh, and a vigilante group called COMBAM, the Committee to Ban Marriages to Muslims, wants their marriage erased. A rock wrapped in a hate-filled note crashes through the family's window, and not long after, men wearing COMBAM headbands ambush Gurbeer on a farm road and smash his knees. As threats against interfaith families spread and a political party that shares COMBAM's views gains power, Simi watches her parents weigh an impossible choice: stay and keep fighting for the life they know, or leave everything, including each other, to find safety somewhere new.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Freedom Seeker
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 The Freedom Seeker. 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 do three men visit a house to ask whether there is beef in the fridge?
✓ Answer
The Freedom Seeker by Ruchira Gupta
The men are really checking whether a Muslim lives in the house, and Dadi has to seat them in the living room while Simi listens from the kitchen table. One of them spits into a flowerpot of delicate ferns on his way out.
- First half
In what book does a father give his daughter a withered leaf reduced to a lacelike frame?
✓ Answer
The Freedom Seeker by Ruchira Gupta
Gurbeer catches the falling leaf as they leave the farm and tells Simi that even a flimsy thing can outlast the seasons. She keeps it pressed inside the book about Gandhi that Nanaji gave her, and it travels with her the whole way.
- First half
In what book does a promised hotel turn out to be cinder block and canvas tents?
✓ Answer
The Freedom Seeker by Ruchira Gupta
After a four hour drive in Carlos's rickety blue car, Simi and Henna arrive at a compound where men play cards by candlelight under tarps. Their room turns out to be bare but clean, with two wooden cots and a fresh bar of soap.
- Second half
In what book do smugglers tell a mother that her daughter has died in the desert?
✓ Answer
The Freedom Seeker by Ruchira Gupta
The men who round up lost children lie to Lucía and Ammi so they can lead José away and collect Simi too. For weeks afterward, the hardest part of being held is knowing her mother believes she is gone.
- Second half
In what book does a girl turn slander into islander during a word game?
✓ Answer
The Freedom Seeker by Ruchira Gupta
Simi's mother taught her words and crosswords, so even exhausted she plays brilliantly, and later she makes host into ghost. The guard calls her an expert, and holding words in her head is how she keeps herself steady.
- Near the end
In what book does a girl slip a note into a visitor's palm during a handshake?
✓ Answer
The Freedom Seeker by Ruchira Gupta
Journalists tour the shelter and Simi is posted by the cafeteria door to praise the food, but she has spent the night writing an appeal instead. She picks the reporter who asks the most questions and passes it over with a smile.
