BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSThirteen-year-old Maleeka Madison is the darkest-skinned girl at McClenton Middle School, and she has spent years absorbing teasing about her color, her homemade clothes, and her height. To survive, she has traded homework and obedience for the protection of Charlese Jones, the most feared girl in school, who lends Maleeka designer outfits in exchange for doing her assignments. When a bold new English teacher named Miss Saunders arrives with a large white birthmark across her face and a talent for making students see themselves more clearly, Maleeka finds herself caught between a teacher who believes in her and a friend who uses her.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Skin I'm In
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 Skin I'm In. 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 decide to cut off her braids to match a model on a magazine cover?
✓ Answer
The Skin I'm In by Sharon G. Flake
Maleeka studies herself in her father's small pink mirror and decides she wants a new look. Sweets takes her to her cousin Ronnie's hair shop, where Ronnie cuts Maleeka's hair short and tells her she has to wear it with attitude.
- First half
In what book does someone secretly draw a cracked, drooping face on the chalkboard labeled "The Teacher With Two Faces"?
✓ Answer
The Skin I'm In by Sharon G. Flake
A student sketches the cruel picture of Miss Saunders on the board before class starts. Miss Saunders erases it in four quick swipes without commenting, then goes on with her Romeo and Juliet lesson.
- First half
In what book does a girl imagine a wild sea crashing against a slave ship like a hundred angry lions?
✓ Answer
The Skin I'm In by Sharon G. Flake
Maleeka takes time on the weekend to write another Akeelma diary entry, picturing the captives chained together like thieves and beaten until they bleed. She vows to make her invented girl strong like the sea and the wind.
- Second half
In what book does a boy apologize for ditching a girl on the bus when kids teased her dark color?
✓ Answer
The Skin I'm In by Sharon G. Flake
Caleb finally tells Maleeka in detention that he left her side because he thought the teasing would stop if they were not together, and he is sorry.
- Second half
In what book does a poem by the narrator's late father call her "Brown, Beautiful, Brilliant"?
✓ Answer
The Skin I'm In by Sharon G. Flake
Maleeka's father Gregory, who died when his cab crashed into a bread truck, wrote the poem before his death and her mother had tucked it away in a closet.
- Near the end
In what book does a frightened girl scatter borrowed clothes from a ripped bag while fleeing a burning classroom?
✓ Answer
The Skin I'm In by Sharon G. Flake
Maleeka's bag rips as she flees the fire she started in Miss Saunders's room, scattering Char's clothes while the janitor yells her name.
