BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSThirteen-year-old Dicey Tillerman has spent the summer leading her three younger siblings on foot from Massachusetts to their grandmother's rundown farm on the Chesapeake Bay in Crisfield, Maryland, after their mother walked away and lost herself to mental illness. Now they have a home with Gram, a sharp, barefoot woman who keeps her feelings close and her chin high, and the story begins where the journey ends: with Dicey trying to figure out how to live instead of just survive. She gets a part-time job at a dusty grocery store, scrapes old paint off a sailboat in the barn, watches over her siblings at school, and slowly, awkwardly, starts letting other people in.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Dicey's Song
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 Dicey's Song. 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 an old wooden sailboat sink at the dock when it is first launched?
✓ Answer
Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt
The four Tillerman children haul the boat from the barn down to the water, only to watch it fill up and settle on the sandy Chesapeake Bay bottom. The boards had shrunk apart from drying out.
- First half
In what book does a girl deliberately make a sloppy work apron with two big red buttons?
✓ Answer
Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt
She finishes first and follows the rules in her own way, with a rippling hem and crooked neckband. When the class laughs at it she throws the apron into a trash basket on her way out the door.
- First half
In what book does a grandmother teach a granddaughter "You've got to hold on. Hold on to people"?
✓ Answer
Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt
Gram tells her granddaughter this during their lunch at the mall, sharing a hard earned lesson from losing her own children. The phrase becomes the central wisdom of the entire story.
- Second half
In what book does an eighth grader get a C+ because her teacher thinks her essay was plagiarized?
✓ Answer
Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt
Mr. Chappelle reads the protagonist's essay aloud and then declares it must be plagiarized because it's too good. This becomes a turning point that connects her to Mina.
- Second half
In what book does a young boy come home from school painted with mercurochrome from fighting on the bus?
✓ Answer
Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt
Sammy keeps fighting with Ernie and his friends but won't say why. His sister and grandmother worry that he's fighting about something serious but he refuses to explain.
- Near the end
In what book does a bearded craftsman carve a chicken when he meant to carve a jay?
✓ Answer
Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt
The slow-spoken woodworker tells the protagonist the piece of wood 'just wanted to be a chicken.' She buys it for her youngest brother, who has been pestering Gram to get real chickens for the farm.
