Inside Out and Back Again
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40 free Inside Out and Back Again trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Thanhha Lai's Inside Out & Back Again follows ten-year-old Hà through a single year that upends everything: the last weeks of the war in Saigon, a crowded navy ship, refugee camps, and a new town in the American South where nobody can pronounce her name. Told in short dated entries, it is funny, angry and tender, often in the same breath. This quiz covers the whole journey: Hà's family and the home they leave behind, the weeks adrift, the sponsor who takes them in, the classroom bullies, the neighbor who becomes her tutor, and the new year that closes the story. A few questions step outside the novel to the real history behind it and to the author's own life. It is written for students reading the novel in class, teachers who want a ready check on comprehension, and anyone revisiting a modern classic. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Inside Out & Back Again, which southern US state does Hà's refugee family settle in after a sponsor chooses them?
Alabama
Alabama is also where the author's own family settled in 1975. In the novel, Hà sometimes wishes she were back in wartime Saigon instead of on its quiet streets.
Q 02In Inside Out & Back Again, which fruit tree, twice Hà's height, does she check every morning in her Saigon backyard?
Papaya
Papaya is the taste Hà misses most in America. Before fleeing, the family cuts down the biggest fruit, still not fully ripe, so the Communists cannot eat it.
Q 03In Inside Out & Back Again, which martial arts film star does Hà's brother Vũ idolize, even borrowing his surname?
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee is why Vũ votes to leave Saigon: he wants to see where his hero lived. In America he renames himself Vu Lee and teaches the neighbors his moves.
Q 04In Inside Out & Back Again, on which Pacific island does Hà's family live in a tent city after weeks adrift?
Guam
Guam sheltered more than 100,000 Vietnamese evacuees in 1975. In the novel an American ship tows Hà's crippled vessel there, and her brother Vũ becomes the camp's head chef.
Q 05In Inside Out & Back Again, which breakfast food does the bully Pink Boy compare Hà's face to?
A pancake
A pancake was something Hà's mother had never heard of, so a sobbing Hà could not even explain the insult. It came on Halloween, a holiday nobody had told her about.
Q 06Rather than prose chapters, in what form did Thanhha Lai write the novel Inside Out & Back Again?
Free verse
Free verse won out after Lai first tried ordinary prose. She felt the short, spare lines came closer to how Vietnamese sounds.
Q 07Inside Out & Back Again opens at Tết 1975, which the Vietnamese zodiac names the Year of which animal?
Cat
Cat takes the Rabbit's place in the Vietnamese zodiac, so the same year belongs to the Rabbit in China. Hà turns ten that morning, because everyone's birthday is counted at Tết.
Q 08In Inside Out & Back Again, Hà calls her family's sponsor a cowboy, but what does he actually do for a living?
Sells cars
He sells cars, and came to the refugee camp looking for a young man to train as a mechanic. Hà is crushed to learn he has never even ridden a horse.
Q 09In Inside Out & Back Again, which American treat from the sponsor does Hà's mother spit out?
Fried chicken
Fried chicken arrives in a paper bucket, but the family is used to birds killed fresh from the yard, which taste sweeter. Hà's brother Vũ gags on his piece.
Q 10In Inside Out & Back Again, what treasured thing does Hà bury at sea along with her brother's dead chick?
Her doll
Her doll was the one treasured item Hà chose to pack when fleeing Saigon, its cheek already bitten by mice. She gives it up to comfort Khôi and misses it at once.
Q 11In Inside Out & Back Again, what does Hà's brother Vũ ride up on to scare Pink Boy away after school?
A motorcycle
A motorcycle roars up just as Pink Boy gets back on his feet, and the bully hurries away. Vũ then collects Hà every day, and classmates suddenly want to sit with her.
Q 12In Inside Out & Back Again, what has been the fate of Hà's navy father for nine years when the story opens?
Missing in action
Missing in action since a navy mission when Hà was a baby, he is known to her only through family stories. Her mother sets out an altar on the date he vanished.
Q 13In Inside Out & Back Again, which faith does Hà's mother practice at home, chanting before an altar with incense?
Buddhism
Q 21In Inside Out & Back Again, what does Hà secretly do before dawn at Tết that only a male should do first?
Touches the floor
Touches the floor: by tradition the first feet down at Tết bless the house, and they should be a man's. Months later a guilty Hà confesses, fearing she ruined the family's luck.
Q 22In Inside Out & Back Again, on which American holiday must refugee families in the camp choose where to resettle?
Fourth of July
The Fourth of July is deadline day in the camp. Hà's mother is about to write down another country when a stranger whispers that America gives scholarships to hard-working sons.
Q 23In Inside Out & Back Again, where in the sponsor's house does his wife keep Hà's family out of the neighbors' sight?
Buddhism stays the family's private faith even after Hà's mother writes a different one on their forms, having learned that American sponsors prefer Christians.
Q 14In Inside Out & Back Again, in which school subject does Hà outshine Pink Boy at the board, leaving him red-faced?
Math
Math lets Hà feel smart again: she solves 18 times 42 while the bully flounders. Back in Saigon she had already been learning fractions.
Q 15Saigon, the city Hà flees in Inside Out & Back Again, was later renamed for which communist leader?
Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh is the name Hà's mother says changed everything in her northern childhood, when families found their houses suddenly belonged to the government.
Q 16In Inside Out & Back Again, which retired teacher next door hugs Hà's family and offers to tutor her?
Mrs. Washington
Mrs. Washington rewards each new English word Hà memorizes with a bite of fruit or a cookie, and later packs her a lunch every school day.
Q 17In Inside Out & Back Again, which ceremony does Hà's family undergo at the sponsor's church to win over the neighbors?
Baptism
Baptism in a small pool terrifies Hà, who is ready to jump in when a preacher pushes her mother under. Only afterwards does the sponsor's wife finally smile at them.
Q 18In Inside Out & Back Again, where does Hà hide to eat lunch during her first weeks at an American school?
In the bathroom
In the bathroom, Hà eats saved dinner rolls, because a cafeteria split between light-skinned and dark-skinned tables leaves no obvious place for her.
Q 19In Inside Out & Back Again, which cafeteria food, striped in a flag's colors, baffles Hà on her first school day?
A hot dog
A hot dog, smeared with red and yellow condiments, carries the colors of her homeland's flag, and Hà briefly thinks she is being mocked. She leaves her tray and waits in the hall.
Q 20Which major American literary prize, in its young people's category, did Inside Out & Back Again win in 2011?
National Book Award
National Book Award judges were honoring a debut: this was Thanhha Lai's first novel, and it had taken her about fifteen years to write.
The basement
The basement window sits so high that Hà must stand on a chair set on a table to see out. Her mother shrugs that they still have more room than they had on the ship.
Q 24In Inside Out & Back Again, which gemstone from Hà's father does her mother lose at work, taking it as a sign?
Amethyst
The amethyst, set in a ring, was the gift Hà's father brought back from navy training in America. Once the stone is lost, her mother accepts that he is truly gone.
Q 25In Inside Out & Back Again, which best friend of Hà's leaves Saigon early with her wealthy family?
TiTi
TiTi heads for Vũng Tàu, where rich families board cruise ships out of the country. Watching her go, Hà is glad her own family is too poor to leave.
Q 26In Inside Out & Back Again, whom does Hà's mother consult every new year, hearing in 1975 that upheaval is coming?
A fortune teller
A fortune teller warns that the family's lives will be turned inside out, the image behind the title. A year later, with none to visit in America, Hà's mother makes the prediction herself.
Q 27In Inside Out & Back Again, what is Hà's oldest brother Quang studying at college before the family flees Saigon?
Engineering
Engineering is what catches the sponsor's eye in the refugee camp. In America Quang takes it up again at night college, helped by Christmas gifts of money and a textbook.
Q 28In Inside Out & Back Again, which US state holds the second tent city where Hà's family waits for a sponsor?
Florida
Florida was one of four states with reception centers for the 1975 evacuees. In the novel, famous singers from Saigon perform there while families wait to be chosen.
Q 29In Inside Out & Back Again, which Vietnamese staple reaches the island camp and makes its canned beef edible?
Fish sauce
Fish sauce, or nước mắm, is handed out in teacups, and food lines soon stretch to the beach. Hà once gulps a cupful by mistake, thinking it is tea.
Q 30In Inside Out & Back Again, what happened to Tom, the son of the neighbor who teaches Hà English?
He died in Vietnam
He died in Vietnam at twenty, yet his mother shows Hà the photographs he took of a country he both loved and hated. She even lets Hà take the album home.