Category: Children’s Author Trivia Questions

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Children’s Author Trivia Volume 3

How well do you know your children’s book authors? Want to try your hand at some new questions?

trivia-logoQuestion 7. This author obtained a law degree and practiced law for nine years in order to finance his true passion, writing. On the way to his degree, he did a stint as a “yard teacher.” Who used this experience to write a successful series of books?

Question 8. Following in his father’s footsteps, this author won the Newbery medal only two years after his father won for his own book. Watch what you write about him, he founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to English. Who is this author and grammar watchdog?

Question 9. This author credits her bittersweet childhood growing up poor in West Virginia as a source of material for her books. She felt it was both a curse and a gift. Who is this versatile children’s book author?

Let us know what you think.

The answers are now posted.

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Children’s Author Trivia Volume 2

Are you ready for the answers to last week’s Children’s Author Trivia?trivia-logo

Question 1. (easy)  This author’s most famous work is about her own family life, with herself and her three sisters as characters. Can you name the author and the book?

As Karen correctly surmised, this was referring to Louisa May Alcott’s book Little Women.

Question 2. (moderately difficult) What children’s author found the books she had donated to her son’s school had been banned from the shelves?

Although she said she didn’t have a clue, Karen nailed this one too. The book that was banned after she donated it was Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Question 3. And finally, here’s a tricky one:  What author typed the manuscript for her most famous book on a typewriter with a faulty w, and had to fill all the w’s in by hand?

Okay, this was the ultimate in trivia. The author with the faulty typewriter is Lucy Maud Montgomery and the manuscript she completed was for Anne of Green Gables. (Can you imagine what it must have been like to put together a manuscript in the days before wordprocessing?)

How well do you know your children’s book authors? Want to try your hand at some new questions?

Question 4. What author was inspired to write is book about an island when he made a map of an imaginary island to entertain his stepson? He said, “It was elaborately and (I thought) beautifully coloured…as I pored upon my map of …the future characters of the book began to appear there visibly among imaginary woods;…”

Question 5. This beloved children’s author produced many detailed watercolor illustrations of fungi early in her career and would have considered a career in science if she hadn’t been discouraged by others. Who was this budding mycologist turned author?

Question 6. Who spent her early childhood in China and four years in Japan, before taking up writing? (Two of her books were given Newbery Awards.)

Edit: The answers are now up.

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Thursday Children’s Author Trivia Challenge

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Are you ready for a fun challenge?

This summer I’m going to post some trivia questions about authors of children’s books on Thursdays. I will post the answers (if you haven’t already guessed them) and new questions next Thursday.

Question 1. (easy)  This author’s most famous work is about her own family life, with herself and her three sisters as characters. Can you name the author and the book?

Question 2. (moderately difficult) What children’s author found the books she had donated to her son’s school had been banned from the shelves?

Question 3. And finally, here’s a tricky one:  What author typed the manuscript for her most famous book on a typewriter with a faulty w, and had to fill all the w’s in by hand?

I would love to hear from everyone, children and adults. So, leave your guesses in the comments below. I’d also love to hear suggestions for making this more fun and/or ideas for questions (my e-mail is on the About page).

The answers are now posted.