BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSBoone Caudill is a restless, hot-tempered Kentucky farm boy who, at fourteen, gets into a violent fight with his father and runs away rather than face a beating. On the road west he falls in with Jim Deakins, a good-natured redhead, and the two make their way to St. Louis and eventually sign on for a fur-trading expedition up the Missouri River into the wild Blackfoot country of the northern Rockies. The novel follows Boone across more than a decade as he becomes a skilled hunter and free trapper, takes a Blackfoot wife, and discovers what the mountain West costs the people who live there.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Big Sky
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 The Big Sky. 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 stranger hauling a corpse to a city funeral share apples with a teenage hitchhiker?
✓ Answer
The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
Boone meets Jim Deakins on the road to Louisville. Jim is hauling a dead man whose feuding children insist he be buried in the city rather than on the farm. Their long ride together is the start of a lifelong partnership.
- First half
In what book do mountain men eat dog and beaver tail and even painter meat with a smacking of lips?
✓ Answer
The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
Summers tells Boone that meat is meat, listing every kind he prefers over elk, including dog, horse, and the cougar called painter. He says he could even stomach skunk if it had not been squirted.
- First half
In what book do Blackfeet attack a trading party trying to raise a small fort above the Missouri?
✓ Answer
The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
Just days after the hunter Summers picks a spot above Teapot Creek to build a trading post, a war party rushes the woodcutters. Jourdonnais and most of the crew are killed when the panicked boatmen cut the keelboat loose and try to flee.
- Second half
In what book does a thief use a gentle old horse as cover to walk among an Indian herd?
✓ Answer
The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
Boone uses Summers' gentle old horse Poky as a screen while stealing the red horse from the Crow herd. Poky's calm wandering lets Boone approach the herd without spooking it.
- Second half
In what book does a Blackfoot interrupt a quiet courtship moment grinning, "Heap punkin"?
✓ Answer
The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
Just as Teal Eye and Boone share their first wordless moment of mutual feeling by the stream, Poordevil pops out grinning through the gap in his teeth and tells Boone what he thinks of his choice.
- Near the end
In what book does a starving man climb a frozen peak on homemade snowshoes hunting white-coated mountain creatures?
✓ Answer
The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
Remembering Summers' old tales of game living high up where hunters hardly ever go, Boone climbs in starvation toward a hidden valley between the peaks. He shoots two of the white goats and saves the camp.
