Consider the title of the memoir. What is its significance? How does the title reflect Ibtisam’s childhood? Give evidence from the text to support your answer.

Why does Ibtisam choose to begin her memoir in 1981? How does her utilization of a frame narrative affect the reader?

Describe Ibtisam’s relationship with her mother both as a teenager in the frame story and as a young child. How would you characterize their relationship? Compare and contrast the mother-daughter relationship with Ibtisam’s relationship to her father. How are the two different? Are there ways in which they are similar? What impacts does each relationship have on Ibtisam as a young child? As a teenager? Discuss.