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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSFourteen-year-old Hannah Andrews has already lost her father and her beloved black horse, Promise, when her cold and calculating Aunt Phoebe does the unthinkable: she sells Hannah into seven years of indentured servitude to the household of General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts. Shipped off to the Province House in Boston in 1774, Hannah finds herself scrubbing floors and waiting on a spoiled girl named Meg while an entire city simmers on the edge of rebellion. When she discovers a secret tunnel beneath the mansion grounds, Hannah begins slipping out at night disguised as a boy named Hans, reuniting with Promise and quietly learning the secrets that British officers let slip when they forget a servant is in the room.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Midnight Rider
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 Midnight Rider. 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 girl discover she has been sold into seven years of service for fifty pounds?
✓ Answer
Midnight Rider by Joan Hiatt Harlow
On the carriage ride to Boston, Miss Lydia shows Hannah the indenture contract. Hannah learns that Aunt Phoebe received fifty pounds for binding her to the Gage household until she turns twenty-one. Hannah realizes her aunt essentially sold her, just as she sold her horse.
- First half
In what book does a girl use her hat to muffle the sound of tacking handbills to building doors?
✓ Answer
Midnight Rider by Joan Hiatt Harlow
Hannah, Caleb, and Will sneak through Boston posting warning handbills threatening lawyers who work with the king's biased judges. Hannah presses her tricorn hat against the tack to muffle the hammering sound as she posts the first one on the courthouse door.
- First half
In what book does a girl save a kitten that the governor orders to be drowned?
✓ Answer
Midnight Rider by Joan Hiatt Harlow
An orange kitten wanders into Gabriel's stall and terrifies the golden stallion. General Gage storms in and orders the cat drowned, but Hannah scoops it up and begs him to let her find it a home. To everyone's surprise, the general agrees, and Hannah names the kitten Gypsy.
- Second half
In what book does a governor's wife quote Shakespeare, saying, "Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms"?
✓ Answer
Midnight Rider by Joan Hiatt Harlow
During a ladies' tea, when the conversation turns to the possibility of war, Mrs. Gage quotes Shakespeare's King John to express her own desperate wish that there be no fighting. The room falls silent, reflecting the tension of a woman torn between her American birth and her British husband's duty.
- Second half
In what book does a girl find large, well-made shoe prints in fresh snow leading to a secret trapdoor?
✓ Answer
Midnight Rider by Joan Hiatt Harlow
Returning from a midnight ride, Hannah discovers mysterious footprints in the snow near the tunnel entrance. The prints come from well-made leather shoes, not the kind worn by working boys. She hides behind a boulder and watches a tall, gaunt man emerge from the trapdoor. He turns out to be Dr. Benjamin Church, the secret informant.
- Near the end
In what book do townspeople raise a drawbridge to keep soldiers from crossing a river?
✓ Answer
Midnight Rider by Joan Hiatt Harlow
When British soldiers march into Salem, the townspeople raise the drawbridge over the North River to buy time for hiding their cannon and arms. Soldiers are furious but cannot cross. Salem men sit on the edge of the raised bridge and hoot at the redcoats.
