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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSEleven-year-old Primrose Squarp lives in Coal Harbour, British Columbia, a small fishing and whaling town on the coast. When a typhoon sweeps in one June day, her father's fishing boat fails to come home, and her mother takes their small skiff out into the storm to find him. Neither parent returns. The town holds a memorial service and begins treating Primrose as an orphan, but Primrose refuses to believe her parents are dead. She is absolutely certain they washed up on an island somewhere and are waiting to be rescued. With her mother's recipe notebook tucked in her back pocket and refuge always available at a local restaurant called The Girl on the Red Swing, where cook Kate Bowzer serves everything on a waffle, Primrose sets about surviving life in Coal Harbour while her parents find their way home.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Everything on a Waffle
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 Everything on a Waffle. 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 babysitter smell of mothballs that spill from every drawer in her house?
✓ Answer
Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath
Miss Perfidy looks after Primrose for three dollars an hour while the town council figures out what to do with her. The mothball fog around Miss Perfidy follows her everywhere, and even her cookies taste like mothballs.
- First half
In what book is a black and white puppy named after a marshmallow cookie?
✓ Answer
Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath
Primrose names the puppy Mallomar because she is round and black and white like Primrose's favorite cookie. Uncle Jack had been planning to call her Puppy. Mallomar becomes Primrose's running, gull-chasing companion throughout the rest of the book.
- First half
In what book does a girl get hit by a truck while practicing huge powerful strides across the road?
✓ Answer
Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath
Primrose tries to imitate her uncle's long, confident salesman stride while waiting outside the cinnamon house. She bends down to dab her bleeding knee just as a truck rounds the corner. The driver swerves and clips her foot, costing her a baby toe.
- Second half
In what book does a father say a pod of killer whales swims along the shore even while sleeping?
✓ Answer
Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath
Primrose remembers a summer in the family skiff on the Johnstone Strait, where her father points out a pod of orcas that has just lost a seventy-year-old grandmother and gained a new calf. When the whales move in close to shore he says they are sleeping, and Primrose is amazed that they keep gliding anyway.
- Second half
In what book does an uncle try to bribe a guidance counselor with a townhouse at cost?
✓ Answer
Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath
Cornered at the restaurant, Uncle Jack hard sells Miss Honeycut a brand new townhouse with picture windows over the bay. The deal of a century is meant to make her drop her campaign to take Primrose away.
- Near the end
In what book does a woman try to dash into an inferno to save her cockapoo?
✓ Answer
Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath
Evie tries to run right into the burning townhouses screaming for her dog Quincehead. A firefighter stops her and tells her the pets have already been rescued.
