Binti

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key plot points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Novella 1-Short Story

Reading Check

1. How old is Binti in Novella 1, at the start of the trilogy?

2. How many siblings does Binti have?

3. What is the name of Binti’s ancestral home?

4. Which professor forces Binti to see a medic after she has a panic attack during deep meditative exercises?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does it mean that Binti is considered a “master harmonizer” by her community, the Himba?

2. What is an “astrolabe”?

3. What is the primary reason why Haifa and Binti find kinship with each other? Describe the aspect of both characters’ personal histories that draws them together.

Paired Resource

“Otjize: The Red Beauty Miracle of the Himba People”

• The Himba people, an African tribe based in present-day Northern Namibia, are widely known for the otjize, which is the red beauty paste made from clay that is used by Himba women.
• In this article, learn about the origins of otjize paste, how it is used by Himba women, and what its purported benefits are.
• How does Binti’s use of otjize paste build and expand upon the traditional healing powers of the Himba’s iconic red clay?

Novella 2, Prologue-Chapter 4

Reading Check

1. What is the name of the city where Okwu presents its weapons to Professor Dema?

2. What physical feat does Haifa perform that causes an onlooker to say, “Humans. Always performing” (111)?

3. In Chapter 2, why is Binti’s room in Third Fish in a different location compared to when she first traveled to Oomza University?

4. Just before Third Fish arrives on Khoush lands, what does Binti do to Okwu’s tentacles, hoping to please her family?

5. What color that Himba do not usually wear does Binti wear to her family gathering?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is known about Binti’s edan up until this point in the trilogy? Briefly describe how it functions and why it is one of Binti’s most cherished objects.

2. What are some of the roles that are forced upon Binti? What expectations accompany these roles?

Novella 2, Chapters 5-9

Reading Check

1. With what type of small, slimy creature does Okwu swim in the lake?

2. How is Auntie Titi related to Binti?

3. Why do the Himba people believe that the Desert People are incapable of controlling their hand motions?

4. What label does Auntie Titi not want applied to Mwinyi?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. In Novella 2, Chapter 8, Binti recalls the precise moment when she found her edan. What series of events led up to this moment?

2. Briefly describe the real reason that the Desert People—also known as the Enyi Zinariya—speak with their hands, as told to Binti by her Auntie Titi.

Paired Resource

“South Sudan, a Nation Embracing Its Identity Through Its Skin”

• This Al Jazeera article from 2018 gives an overview of the skin-whitening industry and the issue of colorism in South Sudan.
• What colorism exists in Binti’s world that you see reflected in this real-world situation in South Sudan?

Novella 2, Chapter 10-Novella 3, Chapter 2

Reading Check

1. Where does the Enyi Zinariyas’ priestess live?

2. In what animal form does the alien that lives among the Enyi Zinariya disguise itself?

3. What personal habit does Kande, the woman Binti sees in a nanoid-induced vision, worry that her family will discover?

4. In Binti’s dream about the Zinariya, what kind of fruit does a little girl teach the 20-foot-tall golden figures how to eat?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Describe the key differences between the Himba and the Enyi Zinariya clans, as discovered by Binti when she reaches the home turf of the Desert People.

2. What is the significance of Binti’s realization that she is no longer “simply Himba”? If not “simply Himba,” what is she?

Novella 3, Chapters 3-7

Reading Check

1. How did Okwu’s flesh acquire a slight glow?

2. After Binti helps bring about a truce between the Meduse and the Khoush, what does she see the Night Masquerade doing?

3. Where do Mwinyi and Okwu want to deposit Binti’s body?

4. Where did Binti’s family hide to stay alive as the Root was burning?

Short Answer

Answer the question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Binti mean when she looks upon the burning remnants of the Root and thinks that “when elephants fight, the grass suffers”? What does this idea mean in a larger context, particularly as it relates to the Khoush people?

Paired Resource

“Afrofuturism: Where Space, Pyramids and Politics Collide”

• Guardian journalist Chardine Taylor-Stone gives an overview of Afrofuturism and the various artists, musicians, and writers who contribute to this cultural movement.
• Taylor-Stone writes, “Afrofuturism also goes beyond spaceships, androids and aliens, and encompasses African mythology and cosmology with an aim to connect those from across the Black Diaspora to their forgotten African ancestry.”
• Where do alien races like the Meduse and the Khoush fit into the discourse around Afrofuturism? What might a subplot like theirs contribute to the conversation?

Novella 3, Chapters 8-12

Reading Check

1. How do Okwu and Mwinyi realize, to their surprise, that Binti is actually alive?

2. What are the first words Binti utters when she awakens from being “dead”?

3. Through what planetary feature does Binti want to fly New Fish before returning to Oomza University?

4. Whom does President Haras unexpectedly invite to attend Oomza University?

Short Answer

Answer the question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Considering the general themes in Binti: The Complete Trilogy, what might New Fish symbolize?

Paired Resource

“Nnedi Okorafor: Sci-fi Stories That Imagine a Future Africa”

• In this TED Talk, listen to Nnedi Okorafor, author of Binti, discuss the inspiration and roots of Binti and how Afrofuturism has taken her writing to “strange places.”
• What did you learn about Nnedi Okorafor’s upbringing as a Nigerian American that you think might have influenced Binti?

Novella 3, Chapters 13-14

Reading Check

1. What is the name of the doctor who examines Binti?

2. When Binti tastes the stones from Saturn’s rings, what do they taste like?

Short Answer

Answer the question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1.  At the end of the trilogy, in what way does Binti find an identity that is separate from her family and community?

Recommended Next Reads

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

• Published in 2015, The Fifth Season is the first installment in N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, a celebrated Afrofuturistic science fiction series.
• Like Binti, The Fifth Season deals with themes of The Intricacies of Race and The Social Construction of Gender (particularly the role of mothers) against the backdrop of a dystopian society.
• The Fifth Season on SuperSummary.com

The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai

• Set in a dystopian “cyberpunk” future, The Tiger Flu (2018) is set in a world in which a community of exiled parthenogenic women go to war against disease, technology, and the men in power who threaten to exterminate them.
• Exploring The Social Construction of Gender, The Intricacies of Race, and Growth as the Key to Survival, The Tiger Flu builds upon the themes found in Binti in new and different ways.
• The Tiger Flu on SuperSummary.com