After reading The Orange Houses, we won't be complaining about the tiny things anymore—nope, not when Fatima, Jimmi, and Mik have real problems to deal with. It's easy to sweat the small stuff when living in a privileged world where a wrong Starbucks order or an old iPhone count as major annoyances, but for our main characters, these sorts of problems are the stuff that dreams are made on. After all, these teens have to deal with immigration police, war, bombs, hearing aids, and stuff we've never experienced. Though we hate to say it, when it comes to injustice, they've got it down pat.
Questions About Injustice
- List all the injustices you can find in the book. Who experiences the most? Who experiences the least?
- How do the characters deal with injustice? What's different about Fatima's and Jimmi's perspectives on injustice?
- Do you think it's fair when Fatima gets deported? In what way is our feeling about her treatment based on the fact that we get to know and love her as a character?
Chew on This
Fatima and Jimmi both experience injustice, but Fatima doesn't allow it to change her positive outlook on life.
At first Mik and her mom want to ignore injustice and hope it goes away, but they soon figure out that injustice is all around them.