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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSIn this novel in verse, Opal Gloria Halloway turns twelve in the fire lookout tower on top of Wolf Mountain in New Mexico's Gila Wilderness, where she lives year-round with her mom and her gran. She is the fourth generation of her family to watch this forest for smoke, and her birthday marks the start of her lookout training with Gran. It also brings a gift from the father she lost to fire, a gold ring with three opals and a note calling her his "fire stone." Opal dreams of starting seventh grade in town with her friends, the Trujillo twins, but Mom says she has to wait. Opal also hides a secret. She is terrified of fire. When Mom hikes to town for supplies, her phone goes silent and a storm that night leaves no word from her, so Opal and Gran are on their own just as fire season begins.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Burning Season
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 Burning Season. 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 father she doesn't remember leave a girl a gold ring with three milky white stones?
✓ Answer
The Burning Season by Caroline Starr Rose
At the garden gate, Mom hands Opal a gift from her father, who died years ago and whom Opal doesn't remember. The gold ring with three opals belonged to his grandma when she was a girl, and he wanted Opal to have it the day she started her training.
- First half
In what book does the sight of a blackened slope from an old fire send a girl running home?
✓ Answer
The Burning Season by Caroline Starr Rose
On a beautiful morning walk along the ridge, Opal glimpses the old scar of the Wolf Ridge Fire across the stream. She was eight when those flames climbed the mountain toward the tower, and the memory frightens her so much that she runs all the way back.
- First half
In what book does a grandmother praise a pretend radio report, saying "that's a fine new lookout we've got"?
✓ Answer
The Burning Season by Caroline Starr Rose
Opal calls in her practice smoke with the azimuth, the cross from Signal Peak and the legal description, then adds "End of report." Gran, who has played Barb, Jim and the dispatcher, breaks into a smile at her granddaughter's work.
- Second half
In what book does a dispatcher's forecast rate lightning on a scale from one to six?
✓ Answer
The Burning Season by Caroline Starr Rose
At 10:30 a.m. Mark radios the fire-weather forecast, the announcement that signals the true start of the season. Along with winds and temperatures, it rates lightning activity from one, meaning no lightning predicted, all the way to six, and today the level is three.
- Second half
In what book does a lightning storm lead a girl to pour water over the stove's coals?
✓ Answer
The Burning Season by Caroline Starr Rose
Gran taught Opal that smoke is made of carbon and can carry electricity, and she once told a story about a lightning bolt zipping through a stovepipe. So with thunder booming close by, Opal pours a cup of water on the coals, and steam and a puff of ash fill the air.
- Near the end
In what book does a girl wad up a map because "a mountain is angles and slopes and curves"?
✓ Answer
The Burning Season by Caroline Starr Rose
Opal pulls the old two-sided map from the firepack and finds Wolf Mountain, but its flat lines and colors don't help her on the steep slope. She crushes it and trusts what she knows instead, that water runs down and she can follow the river.
