Childrens Books Quiz
Pooh, Paddington, the Gruffalo and Miss Trunchbull: 15 questions on the books that raised us.
Who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Roald Dahl
Dahl published the story of Willy Wonka's factory in 1964, drawing on his schooldays, when Cadbury sent boxes of new chocolate bars to his boarding school for the boys to test.
An early draft had a chocolate loving boy called Charlie Bucket hidden inside a chocolate boy mould in the factory, a plot Dahl's nephew talked him out of.
In Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, what does the caterpillar become at the end of the book?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
A butterfly
After eating through a week of food, getting a stomach ache and building a cocoon, the caterpillar emerges as a beautiful butterfly on the final page.
Carle's original idea was a bookworm called Willi, and his editor suggested a caterpillar instead.
What kind of animal is Wilbur in Charlotte's Web?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
A pig
Wilbur is the runt of a litter saved by the farm girl Fern, and the spider Charlotte weaves words into her web to convince the farmer he is too special to slaughter.
Author E. B. White kept pigs on his farm in Maine and once failed to save a sick one, an experience he said shaped the book.
Which Dr. Seuss book features a character called Sam-I-Am who keeps offering an unusual meal?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Green Eggs and Ham
Sam-I-Am pesters the narrator to try green eggs and ham in a house, with a mouse, in a box and with a fox until he finally tastes them and loves them.
Dr. Seuss wrote the book to win a bet with his publisher that he could not write a story using only fifty different words.
What is the name of the gloomy donkey in A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Eeyore
Eeyore lives in a thistly corner of the Hundred Acre Wood, keeps losing his tail and greets every piece of good news with glum resignation.
The real toys that inspired Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga and Tigger are on display at the New York Public Library.
Which bear from Darkest Peru is found by the Brown family at a London railway station?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Paddington
Michael Bond's bear arrives with a suitcase, a label asking someone to look after him and a taste for marmalade, and takes his name from the station where he is found.
Bond was inspired by a lone teddy bear he bought on Christmas Eve 1956, and by memories of evacuee children with labels around their necks.
Who wrote and illustrated Where the Wild Things Are, in which Max sails to an island of monsters?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Maurice Sendak
Sendak's 1963 picture book won the Caldecott Medal, and its wild rumpus of toothy, yellow eyed beasts was based on his own loud relatives from his Brooklyn childhood.
The book has just 338 words, and the wild things were originally going to be horses until Sendak admitted he could not draw them.
Who wrote The Tale of Peter Rabbit?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Beatrix Potter
Potter wrote the story in an 1893 letter to a sick child, then published it privately in 1901 after publishers turned it down, before Frederick Warne took it on in 1902.
Potter used the royalties to buy a farm in the Lake District and left more than 4,000 acres to the National Trust.
In Julia Donaldson's The Gruffalo, which small animal invents the monster to scare off the creatures that want to eat it?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
A mouse
The mouse describes a terrible beast with orange eyes and purple prickles to frighten a fox, an owl and a snake, and is then shocked to meet the real Gruffalo.
The story was inspired by a Chinese folk tale about a girl who tricks a tiger, and Donaldson chose a Gruffalo because tiger did not rhyme.
In Roald Dahl's Matilda, what is the name of the terrifying headmistress of Crunchem Hall?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Miss Trunchbull
Agatha Trunchbull, a former Olympic hammer thrower, throws children by their pigtails and locks them in the spiked Chokey until Matilda's powers drive her away.
Dahl struggled with the book and rewrote it completely, in the original draft Matilda was a wicked child who reformed.
In The Wind in the Willows, which animal is obsessed with motor cars and ends up in prison?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Toad
The rich and reckless Mr Toad of Toad Hall crashes several cars, steals one, is sentenced to twenty years and escapes disguised as a washerwoman.
Kenneth Grahame began the stories as bedtime tales for his son Alastair and published the book in 1908.
Which Swedish author created Pippi Longstocking, the freckled girl who lives alone with a horse and a monkey?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Astrid Lindgren
Lindgren invented Pippi to entertain her sick daughter Karin, who made up the name, and the book was published in 1945 after one publisher rejected it.
Pippi's full name in English is Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim's Daughter Longstocking, and her father is a sea captain.
Which toy in a 1922 story by Margery Williams longs to become real through a child's love?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
The Velveteen Rabbit
The stuffed rabbit learns from the Skin Horse that toys become real when they are truly loved, and a nursery magic fairy finally turns him into a living rabbit.
The story first appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1921, with illustrations by Williams's own daughter, before the book came out the next year.
In Louis Sachar's Holes, what is the name of the desert camp where Stanley Yelnats is sent to dig?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Camp Green Lake
The Texas camp is named after a lake that dried up a century earlier, and the Warden makes the boys dig holes every day because she is hunting for buried treasure.
Holes won both the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award, and Sachar wrote the screenplay for the 2003 film himself.
Which Finnish artist and writer created the Moomins?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Tove Jansson
Jansson introduced her round, white, hippo-like trolls in The Moomins and the Great Flood in 1945 and went on to write eight more Moomin novels and a daily comic strip.
She wrote in Swedish, Finland's second official language, and won the Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's writing in 1966.
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All Literature quizzes →About the Childrens Books Quiz
The books we read as children stick harder than anything we read later. The Very Hungry Caterpillar has sold more than 50 million copies, Roald Dahl's stories still top library borrowing charts decades after his death, and a mouse who invented a monster turned The Gruffalo into a modern classic in 1999.
These 15 questions run from picture books for toddlers, through Winnie-the-Pooh, Paddington and Peter Rabbit, to middle grade favourites like Matilda, Pippi Longstocking and Holes. It suits parents reading bedtime stories, teachers, and anyone who still remembers the smell of a school library, with a couple of harder questions for real bookworms.
You will find 15 multiple choice questions here, each with four options. Difficulty: Easy. Most people finish in about 6 minutes, and every answer comes with a short explanation and one extra fact worth keeping.
How to play
Read the question and pick one of the four answers. The correct answer is revealed straight away with a short explanation, then press Next question to keep going. At the end you get your score out of 15 and a full review of your round. Play again any time and the questions arrive in a fresh order. There is no timer and no account.
Good to know before you play
What age range of books does this quiz cover?
Everything from picture books for the very young to middle grade novels for readers of about eight to twelve.
Can children play this quiz?
Yes. Most questions are gettable by confident readers of about ten and up, and the explanations add a fact worth knowing to each one.
Does the quiz include recent children's books?
It leans towards classics that have been read for decades, with a few titles from the 1990s such as The Gruffalo and Holes.
Answer key: all 15 questions with explanations
- Who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
Roald Dahl Dahl published the story of Willy Wonka's factory in 1964, drawing on his schooldays, when Cadbury sent boxes of new chocolate bars to his boarding school for the boys to test. An early draft had a chocolate loving boy called Charlie Bucket hidden inside a chocolate boy mould in the factory, a plot Dahl's nephew talked him out of. - In Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, what does the caterpillar become at the end of the book?
A butterfly After eating through a week of food, getting a stomach ache and building a cocoon, the caterpillar emerges as a beautiful butterfly on the final page. Carle's original idea was a bookworm called Willi, and his editor suggested a caterpillar instead. - What kind of animal is Wilbur in Charlotte's Web?
A pig Wilbur is the runt of a litter saved by the farm girl Fern, and the spider Charlotte weaves words into her web to convince the farmer he is too special to slaughter. Author E. B. White kept pigs on his farm in Maine and once failed to save a sick one, an experience he said shaped the book. - Which Dr. Seuss book features a character called Sam-I-Am who keeps offering an unusual meal?
Green Eggs and Ham Sam-I-Am pesters the narrator to try green eggs and ham in a house, with a mouse, in a box and with a fox until he finally tastes them and loves them. Dr. Seuss wrote the book to win a bet with his publisher that he could not write a story using only fifty different words. - What is the name of the gloomy donkey in A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories?
Eeyore Eeyore lives in a thistly corner of the Hundred Acre Wood, keeps losing his tail and greets every piece of good news with glum resignation. The real toys that inspired Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga and Tigger are on display at the New York Public Library. - Which bear from Darkest Peru is found by the Brown family at a London railway station?
Paddington Michael Bond's bear arrives with a suitcase, a label asking someone to look after him and a taste for marmalade, and takes his name from the station where he is found. Bond was inspired by a lone teddy bear he bought on Christmas Eve 1956, and by memories of evacuee children with labels around their necks. - Who wrote and illustrated Where the Wild Things Are, in which Max sails to an island of monsters?
Maurice Sendak Sendak's 1963 picture book won the Caldecott Medal, and its wild rumpus of toothy, yellow eyed beasts was based on his own loud relatives from his Brooklyn childhood. The book has just 338 words, and the wild things were originally going to be horses until Sendak admitted he could not draw them. - Who wrote The Tale of Peter Rabbit?
Beatrix Potter Potter wrote the story in an 1893 letter to a sick child, then published it privately in 1901 after publishers turned it down, before Frederick Warne took it on in 1902. Potter used the royalties to buy a farm in the Lake District and left more than 4,000 acres to the National Trust. - In Julia Donaldson's The Gruffalo, which small animal invents the monster to scare off the creatures that want to eat it?
A mouse The mouse describes a terrible beast with orange eyes and purple prickles to frighten a fox, an owl and a snake, and is then shocked to meet the real Gruffalo. The story was inspired by a Chinese folk tale about a girl who tricks a tiger, and Donaldson chose a Gruffalo because tiger did not rhyme. - In Roald Dahl's Matilda, what is the name of the terrifying headmistress of Crunchem Hall?
Miss Trunchbull Agatha Trunchbull, a former Olympic hammer thrower, throws children by their pigtails and locks them in the spiked Chokey until Matilda's powers drive her away. Dahl struggled with the book and rewrote it completely, in the original draft Matilda was a wicked child who reformed. - In The Wind in the Willows, which animal is obsessed with motor cars and ends up in prison?
Toad The rich and reckless Mr Toad of Toad Hall crashes several cars, steals one, is sentenced to twenty years and escapes disguised as a washerwoman. Kenneth Grahame began the stories as bedtime tales for his son Alastair and published the book in 1908. - Which Swedish author created Pippi Longstocking, the freckled girl who lives alone with a horse and a monkey?
Astrid Lindgren Lindgren invented Pippi to entertain her sick daughter Karin, who made up the name, and the book was published in 1945 after one publisher rejected it. Pippi's full name in English is Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim's Daughter Longstocking, and her father is a sea captain. - Which toy in a 1922 story by Margery Williams longs to become real through a child's love?
The Velveteen Rabbit The stuffed rabbit learns from the Skin Horse that toys become real when they are truly loved, and a nursery magic fairy finally turns him into a living rabbit. The story first appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1921, with illustrations by Williams's own daughter, before the book came out the next year. - In Louis Sachar's Holes, what is the name of the desert camp where Stanley Yelnats is sent to dig?
Camp Green Lake The Texas camp is named after a lake that dried up a century earlier, and the Warden makes the boys dig holes every day because she is hunting for buried treasure. Holes won both the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award, and Sachar wrote the screenplay for the 2003 film himself. - Which Finnish artist and writer created the Moomins?
Tove Jansson Jansson introduced her round, white, hippo-like trolls in The Moomins and the Great Flood in 1945 and went on to write eight more Moomin novels and a daily comic strip. She wrote in Swedish, Finland's second official language, and won the Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's writing in 1966.
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