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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSCat is eleven and has spent years watching out for her younger brother Chicken, who is seven, obsessed with sharks, and prone to wandering off on good days and bolting on bad ones. Their summer plans change fast when the family they were supposed to visit in Atlanta has to leave the country on short notice, and Cat's mother makes a decision that catches her completely off guard. She drops Cat and Chicken off with grandparents neither of them has ever met, on an island off the coast of North Carolina. Cat's mother has never explained why she stopped speaking to her own parents years ago, and now Cat is stuck for three weeks with a grandmother who is warm and eager to please and a grandfather who barely says a word. Determined to figure out what really happened between them, and to prove herself against a local boy who has won the island's youth fishing contest four years running, Cat gets pulled into a summer nothing like the one she planned.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Caterpillar Summer
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 Caterpillar Summer. 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 is an island named for the carved scrollwork that decorated pirate ship hulls?
✓ Answer
Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn
Cat pictures a gumdrop house by a sea of frosting until Amanda explains where the name really comes from. Pirates worked the North Carolina coast for years, and Cat's grandfather Macon knows all the stories.
- First half
In what book does a failed backflip leave a boy so sandy he looks like a sugar doughnut?
✓ Answer
Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn
John Harvey throws himself backward off a protected dune to impress his big brother Briggs and lands face first in the world's sandiest belly flop. The older boys hoot at him, which is part of why he turns so nasty on Cat a moment later.
- First half
In what book does a boy trade his silence about a library fight for a park trip?
✓ Answer
Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn
Cat warns Chicken that if their grandparents hear about the bloody nose they will never be allowed out alone again. Chicken calmly names his price, and Cat realizes his marshmallow heart has grown a row of teeth.
- Second half
In what book does a man teach a girl to hook a live shrimp through its horn?
✓ Answer
Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn
Macon shows Cat to avoid the dark spot that is the shrimp's brain and to run the hook through the spiky horn on top instead. Shrimp kick backward when they flee a predator, so baited that way the shrimp looks natural to a fish.
- Second half
In what book does a mother pick boogie boarding over the fishing trip her daughter expected?
✓ Answer
Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn
Cat had been counting on that fishing trip to get her mom and her grandfather standing side by side on the pier. Her mom says fishing was never a set plan, so the two of them spend the morning riding waves instead.
- Near the end
In what book does a grinning great white shark guard the last mini golf hole?
✓ Answer
Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn
Harriet treats Cat to a round at the course John Harvey's family owns, and the final hole offers a free game token if you can putt past three holes into the shark's mouth. Harriet lands it perfectly and Cat's ball drops into the very first hole.
