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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSLan Mifune is a kid who has already lost one home: Earth is gone, and humanity spent a grim year on a Mars station before getting an invitation to settle on Planet Choom, a world already shared by four alien species. After twenty years in bio-suspension, Lan's family wakes up to discover the invitation has been revoked and the Zhuri — tall, mosquito-like beings who communicate emotion through smell — have decided humans are too violent and emotional to live among them. With nowhere else to go and a thousand desperate people orbiting above, Lan's family is chosen as a test case: if they can convince Choom's citizens that humans are peaceful, the rest of humanity might be allowed to land.
Free Battle of the Books questions for We're Not from Here
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 We're Not from Here. 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 sing "Under a Blue Sky" on a TV show called Pop Singer?
✓ Answer
We're Not from Here by Geoff Rodkey
Ila Mifune wrote her own song and performed it in the Pop Singer semifinals to 60 million viewers. Two days before the live final, Earth fell apart faster, and her family fled to a spaceport instead of the studio.
- First half
In what book does a hungry student with razor teeth ask the new kid what she would taste like?
✓ Answer
We're Not from Here by Geoff Rodkey
On Lan's first day at the alien school, a Krik in the back row growls a question her translator cannot decode. The teacher reluctantly translates that the student wanted to know what Lan tastes like, which makes Lan ramble nervously about her smelly feet.
- First half
In what book is a hidden TV revealed by stepping three times on a mismatched hexagon tile on the floor?
✓ Answer
We're Not from Here by Geoff Rodkey
Ezger asks Lan if she is stupid for not knowing there is a TV in the wall. He taps a slightly different colored floor tile three times, and a control panel rises out of a trapdoor while a giant screen appears on the wall.
- Second half
In what book do giant marshmallow aliens make their fat cells poisonous so a meat-eating species cannot eat them?
✓ Answer
We're Not from Here by Geoff Rodkey
Marf explains on the pod ride to dinner that her Ororo ancestors genetically manipulated their fat cells generations ago so that any Krik who ate any part of them would die instantly. She calls it a creative solution to a serious public health problem.
- Second half
In what book does a guard zap a girl unconscious for jumping off a stool in the cafeteria?
✓ Answer
We're Not from Here by Geoff Rodkey
After Lan does a spit take and pratfall off a stool to make the alien students laugh, her guard hits her with a neural disrupter that knocks her out. The school principal later sides with Lan and bans the guard from the school halls.
- Near the end
In what book is a girl trapped inside a beige coffin-sized drawer in an alien prison?
✓ Answer
We're Not from Here by Geoff Rodkey
Ila and Lan are held in a mausoleum-like detention center with hundreds of two-by-two foot drawers in the walls. Lan can barely breathe in hers before she gets dumped out into an interrogation room. The whole place is the same boring beige color as everything else on this planet.
