BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSJezebel Turner is almost eleven years old and lives with her twin brother Jay, her mother, and their great-uncle Doc Buzzard on Wadmalaw, a Sea Island near Charleston, South Carolina, in 1963. The book opens on the day the family buries Gran, the family matriarch and a respected rootworker whose healing potions and protective spells have helped the whole island community for years. With Gran gone, Doc asks Mama for permission to begin teaching Jezebel and Jay the family's root magic, not just the medicines and perfumes but the deeper practices of protection and spirit work. As Jezebel starts learning alongside her brother, she discovers a natural gift for rootwork that goes beyond anything Doc expected, and she finds herself navigating a world of real haints, a boo-hag disguised as a classmate, a poppet lurking in the marsh, and a dangerous deputy who has targeted rootworkers on the island for years.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Root Magic
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 Root Magic. 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 haint blue paint used to keep spirits away from a house?
✓ Answer
Root Magic by Eden Royce
Doc has Jay and Jezebel mix drops of blue dye into a can of paint to make haint blue, then paint the whole house. The color reminds spirits of the ocean, which they cannot cross. It is one of the first protection lessons.
- First half
In what book does a shadow fold itself small and release a grandmother's spirit?
✓ Answer
Root Magic by Eden Royce
Doc invites the dark shape from outside into the cabin. It folds itself again and again until it becomes a small rectangle on the floor. Then Gran's spirit rises from it, smelling like lemon, pine, gardenias, and benne candy.
- First half
In what book does a girl pry open a rusty metal trap with a pitchfork to free a wolf?
✓ Answer
Root Magic by Eden Royce
Jezebel finds an injured animal she thinks is a coyote with its leg in a steel trap near the live oak. She wedges a pitchfork between the jaws and twists with all her strength until the teeth open. Later she learns it was actually a red wolf.
- Second half
In what book does a brother sit under a chinaberry tree ready to become blood brothers with a classmate?
✓ Answer
Root Magic by Eden Royce
Jezebel discovers Jay across from the school with a boy named Tony who is holding a small knife, ready to cut their hands and mix blood. Jez breaks it up, hurt that her twin would want a brother when he already has her.
- Second half
In what book does a doll's voice tell a girl her family is two-head?
✓ Answer
Root Magic by Eden Royce
Lying in bed, Jezebel asks her cloth doll if she is a witch, and Dinah replies in a creaky voice that the family is "two-head," an old Gullah term meaning one head in the real world and one in the magic world. It is a name Gran used for a witch doctor.
- Near the end
In what book do twins drag a folded human skin out of the marsh and salt it inside a cabin?
✓ Answer
Root Magic by Eden Royce
Knowing salt is the way to stop a hag, Jezebel and Jay haul Susie's discarded skin back to Doc's cabin and pour salt over it. The skin jerks and jumps like it is in a trap. Doc later carries it back outside with thick gloves.
