Plot
Where does Elwood live now?
NY
Who is Denise?
Elwood's girlfriend
What do you need to be promoted to in order to serve your time at Nickel? At what age do you automatically get out of Nickel?
Ace; 18
How does the strike relate to the theme of resistance? How effective of an act of a resistance do you think the garbage strike is?
various answers
What does bumptious mean?
self-important
What strike happened when he first moved to his new state?
garbage strike
Who is Clayton?
Boy from Nickel who tried to escape
What is the second way to get out of Nickel?
court intervention
How does Elwood’s time at Nickel continue to affect him as an adult?
his choice of moving company, Ace, wanting to be sad by watching the movie, not getting his GED until he was an adult—clearly not a good education at Nickel
What means attention to detail and accuracy?
fastidious
Which part of Elwood’s body is injured?
back
Where did Elwood and Denise meet?
GED/ESL class
What are the possible ways you can die at Nickel?
natural causes, negligence, abuse
What does it mean that it was the fact that he “stopped fighting” that “undid” Elwood, and that he had “fooled himself that he had prevailed” if he “got to lights out without a mishap”? (155). How does the quotation reinforce the theme of resistance?
it means that not resisting doesn’t ultimately make Elwood feel like he has “won,” even though he has stayed out of trouble because he has not challenged the injustices of racism at Nickel.
What means to fake an illness?
What does Elwood do for a living?
works for a moving company
Who is Bell?
Clayton's sister
What are the consequences of getting caught after trying to escape from Nickel?
Ice Cream Factory and then the dark cell for a couple of weeks
How does the story about Clayton relate to the Gingerbread Man?
The gingerbread man is not able to escape and neither is Clayton.
Which two words on the vocab list are synonyms?
scorn and disdain
Why didn’t Clayton’s attempt to escape Nickel work?
He hitchhiked, unknowingly, with a board member of Nickel, who took him back.
Who is Burt?
another student at Nickel who asks to sit next to Elwood and Harriet
What is the 5th way Elwood comes up with for getting out of Nickel and what provokes him to come up with this way to get out?
shut Nickel down; his grandmother’s news that his lawyer quit reignites Elwood’s desire to fight back
How does the movie that they watch, The Defiant Ones, resonate with themes in Nickel Boys?
Those in Nickel are also “convicts,” some of whom consider running away. It’s about choosing to be defiant or obey and about choosing to stick together (brotherhood) instead of acting as an individual.
Spell the word that means alias.
Pseudonym