BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSSixteen-year-old Cheyenne Wilder is waiting alone in the back of her stepmom's SUV outside a Portland-area shopping center. She's sick with pneumonia, running a fever, and blind, the result of a car accident three years earlier that also killed her mother. She left her guide dog Phantom at home that morning because it was supposed to be a quick stop. When the driver's door opens and the engine starts, Cheyenne assumes her stepmom is back. It isn't her stepmom. A seventeen-year-old named Griffin has climbed into the SUV to steal it, with no idea that anyone is curled under the blanket in the backseat. By the time he realizes his mistake, he has already decided he can't let her go free. Sick, blind, and alone with someone who won't say where they're headed or when they'll stop, Cheyenne has to figure out how to use everything she has left, her hearing, her memory, her wits, to survive.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Girl, Stolen
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 Girl, Stolen. 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 the smell of cigarettes tell a blind passenger that a stranger is driving?
✓ Answer
Girl, Stolen by April Henry
Cheyenne is lying under a blanket in the backseat when someone gets in and starts the engine. Danielle is a nurse who cannot stand smokers, so the smoke joins the too hard door slam and the fast, harsh breathing as proof that something is badly wrong.
- First half
In what book does a captive lock a bathroom door and run the sink for privacy?
✓ Answer
Girl, Stolen by April Henry
Cheyenne pushes the lock button as the door closes and turns the water on to cover small noises, then feels her way to the window. Standing there she works out from the sun and the turns they took that the back of the house faces only woods.
- First half
In what book does a thief explain moving a junked car's serial number onto a better one?
✓ Answer
Girl, Stolen by April Henry
Griffin describes how Roy buys totaled cars at auction just for their VIN plates, then hunts down a matching model to take. He feels a strange pride telling Cheyenne about it, because he has never had anyone to talk to about the family business.
- Second half
In what book does an English teacher tell a blind student, "You can hardly tell you have a handicap"?
✓ Answer
Girl, Stolen by April Henry
Ms. Crispin means it as a compliment, and it stings, especially since she handed Cheyenne a B on a group project that everyone else failed. Between that and Mr. Waddell promising no special considerations, none of her teachers manage to treat her like a regular student.
- Second half
In what book does a boy explain that his scarred throat was burned when his father's drugs flared up?
✓ Answer
Girl, Stolen by April Henry
Griffin was burned walking into the barn while Roy was cooking meth, and he spent a month in a burn unit afterward. The scars are why he buttons his shirts up to the neck, and why he hates the way strangers stare or smile at him.
- Near the end
In what book does a man batter a car window with a rock and crush his own fingers?
✓ Answer
Girl, Stolen by April Henry
Cheyenne has forced Roy out of his own car and locked both doors, so he starts hammering the glass to get back in. On the third swing the thump sounds muffled and he curses, and she lets herself think one word, good.
