Teacher’s Guide: Forward Me Back to You
Forward Me Back to You by Mitali Perkins
The award-winning author of You Bring the Distant Near explores identity, homecoming, and the legacy of assault in this personal and ambitious new novel.
Katina King is the reigning teen jujitsu champion of Northern California, but she’s having trouble fighting off the secrets in her past. Robin Thornton was adopted from an orphanage in India and is reluctant to take on his future. If he can’t find his roots, how can he possibly plan ahead?
Robin and Kat meet in the most unlikely of places—a summer service trip to Kolkata to work with survivors of human trafficking. As bonds build between the travelmates, Robin and Kat discover that justice and healing are tangled, like the pain of their pasts and the hope for their futures. You can’t rewind life; sometimes you just have to push play.
In turns heart wrenching, beautiful, and buoyant, Mitali Perkins’s new novel focuses its lens on the ripple effects of violence—across borders and generations—and how small acts of heroism can break the cycle.
This guide was written by Kathleen Odean. This guide is aligned with Common Core State Standards for grade five but can be applied to grades three through seven. To attain specific Common Core grade-level standards for your classroom and students, you are encouraged to adapt the activities listed in this guide to your classes’ needs.
