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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSJ.B. Williamson, Trey Jackson, and Ramón Zambrano are seniors at Urban Promise Prep, an all-boys DC charter school built around strict discipline and its founder's larger-than-life reputation, Principal Kenneth Moore. In the days before a big playoff game, each boy has his own private run-in with Moore, a shouting match, a public humiliation, a punishment that costs him something he cares about, and each one lands in detention together on the Friday afternoon Moore is shot dead in his office. Police quickly settle on the three boys as their only suspects, and the pressure to confess starts almost immediately. Each of them is innocent, but each is also hiding something from that day that would make him look exactly like a killer. With reporters, neighbors, and detectives already deciding their guilt for them, J.B., Trey, and Ramón realize that clearing their names means finding the real killer themselves, before the case gets closed on the three of them instead.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Promise Boys
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 Promise Boys. 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 every student's daily point count start at one hundred and only go down?
✓ Answer
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
Teachers dock points on a beeping tablet app, and there is no way to earn any back. J.B. finds the whole system unfair, and the constant beeping in the halls becomes the sound of the school.
- First half
In what book does a teacher ask a student, "What's value four?" in an empty hallway?
✓ Answer
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
Mr. Finley catches Trey walking off the hallway line after practice with nobody else around, makes him answer integrity, and sends him back to do it again. The delay costs Trey his bus and sets up a very bad night at home.
- First half
In what book does a principal dump a student's food in the trash and pour juice over it?
✓ Answer
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
Moore throws the pupusas away one by one in front of the whole silent cafeteria, ruins them with a juice bottle, then pockets Ramón's cash. That money was meant to bail César out of jail.
- Second half
In what book does a cracked egg reveal a yolk flecked with bright clots of blood?
✓ Answer
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
Ramón and his abuela both gasp when she cracks the egg from the cleansing into a glass bowl. She decides later that the blood in the yolk is not the dead principal's but her grandson's, standing for the thousand small wounds the world keeps giving him.
- Second half
In what book does a tall suspect toss bottle caps at a girl's window at night?
✓ Answer
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
Keyana looks down and sees J.B. outside, and she says it is almost like seeing a ghost. She lets him climb up, and he tells her he needs help clearing his name, which is where their investigation begins.
- Near the end
In what book do three suspects watch their own school's front door through binoculars?
✓ Answer
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
Trey brings the binoculars so the three can wait up the block until dismissal without being spotted, and they even wear their uniforms to blend into the crowd. They are waiting for Omar, the quiet office kid who was the last person seen with the principal.
