The Color of Water

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

CHAPTERS 1-4

Reading Check

1. Ruth McBride was born in what country?

2. In te wake of his stepfather’s death, James takes up a new hobby doing what?

3. Ruth comes to America at what age?

4. James’s older siblings embrace the Black Power movement by wearing “liberation colors” (25). What are those colors?

Short Answer

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

1. Why did Tateh agree to an arranged marriage with Mameh?

2. What is a moment in the text that exemplifies how James has internalized white America’s fears about the Black Panthers and Black Power?

Paired Resource

“The Story of James McBride”

• In this brief video, APB Speakers interviews James McBride about his career and his works, including The Color of Water.  
• James explains how his Cultural Heritage and his upbringing from his mother have deeply influenced his writing.
• What do you think about James’s comments about how he sees his failures as lessons? How could you apply this to your own life? 

CHAPTERS 5-8

Reading Check

1. In 1929, Ruth’s family settles in what city in Virginia?

2. What is the name of the church where Ruth attends services every Sunday in Queens?

3. As described in Chapter 7, Ruth’s 15-year-old brother Sam runs away from Suffolk to make a living doing what?

4. Who is the eldest of James’s siblings who is often praised by Ruth?

Short Answer

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

1. When James asks Ruth if God is Black or white, how does she respond? What larger effect does her response have on his psyche?

2. Describe the difference between Big Kids and the Little Kids, as James explains in Chapter 8. Which camp does James fall into? How does this division shape his childhood?

Paired Resource

“‘Emphasize The Positive’: James McBride on the Kindness That Shaped Him”

• James discusses his novel, The Good Lord Bird, in this NPR interview from 2020.
• James explains how his churchgoing experiences as a kid attending Baptist services with his mother, and other parts of his Cultural Heritage, influenced the storyline of The Good Lord Bird.
• What parts of Ruth’s religiousness, as shown in this section of The Color of Water, influence James’s writing in The Good Lord Bird?

CHAPTERS 9-12

Reading Check

1. What is shul?

2. James’s brother Richie is stopped by police because they believe he had what drug in his possession?

3. Sensing Ruth’s unplanned pregnancy, Mameh instructs Ruth to leave home to stay with which relative who lives in New York?

4. What does James’s stepfather, Hunter, do for work?

Short Answer

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

1. When was the first time James heard his mother speak Yiddish? What does this say about Ruth’s attitude toward her own Jewishness?

2. Ruth explains that loving Peter, a Black man, was not an act of rebellion against her racist father. What about Peter makes her fall in love with him?

Paired Resource

“Op-Ed: How I Learned to Embrace My Black and Jewish Heritage”

• Journalist Davon Loeb discusses his own struggle to make sense of his racial identity, and how he eventually came to honor his Blackness and Jewishness.
• Like James, Loeb experiences a profound sense of racial confusion growing up. He shuns the Jewish part of his heritage as a child.
• How does Loeb’s experience compare to James’s? Does Loeb have an “easier” time than James in certain ways? How do their overall attitudes differ?

CHAPTERS 13-18

Reading Check

1. When James begins shoplifting, smoking marijuana, and drinking alcohol in Chapter 14, his mother sends him to spend the summer where?

2. In Chapter 16, Ruth impulsively tells James that she wants to learn what skill?

3. After high school, Ruth gets a job working at her Aunt May’s factory, which produces what?

4. In the summer of 1974, Ruth decides to uproot her family and move to what city/state?

Short Answer

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

1. What is the dynamic between Ruth and her aunts and uncles in New York? How do they treat Ruth?

2. Why does Tateh forbid Ruth from partaking in her high school graduation ceremony?

Paired Resource

“Abortion and Judaism”

• My Jewish Learning discusses how the Jewish stance on abortion is not absolute: It does not condone it directly, but it also does not categorically prohibit it.
• This article helps us better understand Ruth’s Jewish Cultural Heritage, and how that contributed to her feelings around her abortion.
• With this additional context, how does the article help you unpack the pain and sadness that Ruth felt in the wake of her own abortion?

CHAPTERS 19-22

Reading Check

1. Which of Dennis’s relatives is particularly fond of Ruth, as James notes in Chapter 19?

2. When James asks Eddie where he can find Tateh in Chapter 20, how does Eddie reply?

3. When Ruth tries to see Mameh in Chapter 21, Aunt Mary tells her that the family sat shiva for her. What does this imply?

4. What is the name of the state employee whose father took over Tateh’s store?

Short Answer

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

1. What happens at The Boston Globe that gives James the motivation to return to Suffolk to research Ruth’s family?

2. How did Mameh’s sisters deliver the news to Mameh that Bubeh had passed away?

CHAPTER 23-EPILOGUE

Reading Check

1. After the death of Mameh, Ruth finds solace in the sermons by what Baptist minister?

2. Why does Ruth resent the new minister of New Brown Memorial Baptist Church?

3. After graduating from Oberlin, James receives a master’s degree in journalism from what university?

4. After earning her bachelor’s degree from Temple University, Ruth begins volunteering at an agency that serves what population?

Short Answer

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

1. What is the period of life that Ruth considers to be the happiest of her life, as described in Chapter 23?

2. Who is David Lee Preston, and why does James choose to conclude the memoir with an anecdote about him?

Recommended Next Reads 

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

• Set in 1960s Brooklyn, this 2021 novel tells the story of an elderly church deacon known as Sportcoat, and the fallout after he shoots a housing project drug dealer at point-blank range. 
• The characters in this novel, like James, struggle to escape the Legacy of their Cultural Heritage, but ultimately find it Inescapable.
• The novel features many Black and Latinx characters and deals with issues of race and privilege.
• Deacon King Kong on SuperSummary

Song Yet Sung by James McBride

• Published in 2009, this novel takes place immediately before the Civil War, when a fugitive from slavery named Liz breaks free from her captors and escapes into the swamps of Maryland’s eastern shore.
• The book deals with themes of Racism and Privilege as Liz, the protagonist, seeks to escape the violence and persecution Black people faced in the post-Civil War period.
• As in The Color of Water, Liz struggles to find herself in a world largely hostile to Black individuals and individuals with diverse racial backgrounds.
• Song Yet Sung on SuperSummary