BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTwelve-year-old Abilene Tucker has spent her whole life drifting from town to town with her father, Gideon, a railroad worker with a gift for stories and a talent for moving on. In the summer of 1936, something changes in Gideon after Abilene suffers a bad infection from a leg cut, and he sends her to spend the summer in Manifest, Kansas, the small Depression-era town where he grew up. Abilene arrives with almost nothing: a satchel, two dimes, and her father's broken compass. Staying with the rough-edged interim pastor Shady Howard, she quickly befriends two local girls named Lettie and Ruthanne, stumbles onto a cigar box of old letters and mementos hidden under a floorboard, and is drawn into the orbit of Miss Sadie, a mysterious Hungarian fortune teller who lives down the ominously named Path to Perdition. As Abilene works off a debt to Miss Sadie by digging in her garden, the old woman begins telling stories about Manifest's past, and Abilene starts to suspect that the boy at the center of those stories, a young con artist called Jinx, may be connected to the father she is so desperate to understand.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Moon Over Manifest
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 Moon Over Manifest. 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 word PERDITION welded crookedly across an old iron gate?
✓ Answer
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
The gate is studded with forks, kettles, and horseshoes, and the welded letters spell out a preacher's word for ruin. It marks the diviner's house and feels like a warning to stay away.
- First half
In what book do hidden girls see a stern nun with no veil after she delivers a baby?
✓ Answer
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
Following a scream through the woods, the girls spy Sister Redempta at the Clayton house, sleeves rolled up and short hair showing. They are stunned to learn the teacher has quietly birthed half the town.
- First half
In what book does a saloon owner bid against a boy at an auction to make him pay restitution?
✓ Answer
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
Because Jinx's fireworks ruined the quilt, Shady drives up the bidding until Jinx wins it for exactly the amount he earned selling them. It is Shady's clever way of making the boy answer for his mischief.
- Second half
In what book does a little girl keep holding nesting dolls up to a hidden peephole?
✓ Answer
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
Four-year-old Eva Cybulskis spots Jinx through his peephole and keeps showing him her painted matryoshka dolls. Later she toddles over and gives him the tiniest one as a gift of hope.
- Second half
In what book does a girl look up a word and learn it means a list of ship passengers?
✓ Answer
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
Stuck in the empty classroom, Abilene finally looks up the word Sister Redempta told her to find. She learns it can mean a passenger list, fitting for a town of immigrants, and also means to reveal or make known.
- Near the end
In what book are old newspapers from 1918 delivered as a prank, confusing readers about the war?
✓ Answer
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
Billy Clayton happily delivers a stack of old 1918 papers, so readers briefly think the war is back and Wilson is still president. Hattie Mae jokes that they should wake up and smell the Depression.
