BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSHughie Wolfe is a Muscogee sophomore in Hannesburg, Kansas, whose fall theater season gets cut for budget reasons, so when his friend Sam recruits him to help build a haunted house called Harvest House in an abandoned chicken restaurant at a rural crossroads, Hughie jumps at the chance to build sets again. The book alternates between Hughie's story, told in chapters that count down the days until Halloween, and short chapters narrated by a ghost who has quietly watched over the crossroads for decades. As opening night nears, Hughie clashes with the haunted house's organizer over a stereotypical "Indian maiden" ghost legend she wants to use, and reports start piling up of girls being stalked near the crossroads by a mysterious figure who is somehow driven off each time by birds, a coyote, or another wild animal. Determined to protect his girlfriend Marie and his friend Sam's sister, Hughie and his friends start digging into decades of local history, and what they find suggests the fundraiser haunted house they built might be genuinely haunted after all.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Harvest House
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 Harvest House. 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 the fall play cut from the budget right after the school buys a jumbotron?
✓ Answer
Harvest House by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Theater, the school paper, TV, radio, and orchestra all get slashed while football keeps its expensive scoreboard. Losing the fall show is what frees up Hughie's time for the volunteer haunt and the script contest.
- First half
In what book do two teens play a tabletop Ms. Pac-Man machine at a Chinese restaurant?
✓ Answer
Harvest House by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Hughie and Marie eat pot stickers at Clifford's Chinese Kitchen on a table that doubles as an arcade game. Their joking about eating ghosts slides into a real conversation about whether ghosts exist at all.
- First half
In what book is a Native volunteer offended when asked to wear a cheap black wig as a ghost?
✓ Answer
Harvest House by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Ms. Fischer cheerfully asks Hughie and Sam to play ghosts for the stereotyped burial ground finale she has planned. Hughie is shocked and insulted, and much of the rest of the book is about how he works to get that whole idea replaced.
- Second half
In what book does a ghost confess that her own scary legend is mostly her own invention?
✓ Answer
Harvest House by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Celeste admits she built up the crossroads legend herself, mostly to scare brown girls away from walking that road alone after dark. She even played tricks like tapping shoulders and swiping ball caps, which makes her fury at the fake graveyard set sting even more.
- Second half
In what book do teenagers scream at a plastic bag sliding across a car windshield?
✓ Answer
Harvest House by Cynthia Leitich Smith
The friends are parked in a downpour on a back road, arguing about whether the creeper and the ghost are real, when something white flies at the glass. Rain calls it the ongoing destruction of the planet, and the nervous laughter clears the air.
- Near the end
In what book do teens learn that a parking lot was poured three days after a girl vanished?
✓ Answer
Harvest House by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Sam finds the construction date at four in the morning in Cricket's basement after hours of tedious database searching. It is the discovery that turns the whole mystery toward the pavement across the road.
