BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTwelve-year-old Mac Delaney lives in a small Pennsylvania tourist town that runs on rules: no junk food, no Halloween, strict dress codes, even a 9 p.m. curfew, most of them pushed by newspaper letter writer Laura Samuel Sett, who also happens to be Mac's new sixth-grade teacher. Mac's mother works in hospice care, his grandfather is a Vietnam veteran who shares his love of candy and blunt honesty, and his father is a separate problem entirely, an unpredictable man who visits only on Saturdays and insists he is secretly an alien anthropologist rather than an ordinary human dad. When Ms. Sett's class is assigned Jane Yolen's award-winning novel *The Devil's Arithmetic* for lit circle, Mac and his friends Marci and Denis discover that someone has blacked out several words in every school copy with a marker, hiding them behind ugly rectangles. Certain that hiding words from kids is wrong, the three of them set out to find out who did it and why, taking their fight from the school library to the principal's office and beyond, all while Mac tries to figure out who he can actually trust to tell him the truth.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Attack of the Black Rectangles
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Attack of the Black Rectangles. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a girl call a classmate and tell him to open to page ninety-three?
✓ Answer
Attack of the Black Rectangles by A. S. King
Marci Thompson phones Mac on a Friday night because she has found something in their lit circle copies of The Devil's Arithmetic. Page ninety-three is where Mac first sees the marked out words, and that phone call starts the whole fight.
- First half
In what book does a student get recess detention for correcting a teacher's lesson about Columbus?
✓ Answer
Attack of the Black Rectangles by A. S. King
Mac lays out what Columbus actually did, and Ms. Sett tells him it is a topic for high school or college. She leaves him alone in the room for most of recess before coming in to tell him not to challenge her in front of the class.
- First half
In what book does a classmate ask everyone to stop using the English name she adopted?
✓ Answer
Attack of the Black Rectangles by A. S. King
Hannah Do tells her lit circle group that her real name is Hoa and that she started using an English name in first grade to make English speakers comfortable. Her friends agree right away, and not one of them tells Aaron about it when he wanders back into class.
- Second half
In what book does an old man meditate cross-legged on a bare garage floor after cursing?
✓ Answer
Attack of the Black Rectangles by A. S. King
Grandad comes home to find the garage empty and his old car gone. He lets loose a deep howl and about ten bad words, then sits down and breathes, which is how he handles his biggest feelings all through the story.
- Second half
In what book does a classmate call his censored book tyranny and say, "don't tread on me"?
✓ Answer
Attack of the Black Rectangles by A. S. King
Aaron James spends most of the book insisting the Earth is flat and needling everyone in group six. Once his own book is marked up, he becomes one of the loudest voices against the censorship and promises his dad will hear about it.
- Near the end
In what book does an author mention that people burned one of her books on a school board's steps?
✓ Answer
Attack of the Black Rectangles by A. S. King
In her letter, Jane Yolen tells Mac that censorship is no stranger to her and describes what happened to her novel Briar Rose. She wants him to know that losing one fight does not mean he should stop fighting.
