The Happiest Refugee

Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.

Prologue-Chapter 3

Reading Check

1. Where is the narrator going in the Prologue?

2. What did the narrator’s father say to him when he was younger?

3. What is the young girl trying to catch as Chapter 1 opens in 1970s Vietnam? Why?

4. What did Uncle Huy do with his life after he saw the explosion on the boat?

5. According to Do, how do many Vietnamese families give nicknames to their children?

6. What is the “Motherfish?”

7. What does the German rescue boat give Anh’s family? Why?

8. What does Anh’s mom sell to a local Malaysian man in the refugee camp?

9. Why does Anh’s family move to the factory in Newtown?

Multiple Choice

1. Which of the following best describes how Anh’s dad feels the night before he leaves Vietnam on the boat?

A) excited and hopeful

B) resentful and frightened

C) guilty and grief-stricken

D) shameful and sad

2. What was unusual about the second pirate attack?

A) It was joyful because Anh’s family knew the family on the other boat.

B) It was ironic because the pirates gave Anh’s family water to help them survive.