BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTwelve-year-old Lina Mayfleet lives in Ember, an underground city lit entirely by electric floodlamps that are starting to fail. On Assignment Day, Lina trades her dreaded Pipeworks laborer job with classmate Doon Harrow and gets the messenger job she has always wanted, while Doon heads underground hoping to learn enough about the city's failing generator to save Ember from the blackouts and shortages growing worse every month. When Lina's forgetful grandmother tears apart a closet and Lina's toddler sister Poppy chews up a document found in an old locked box, Lina pieces together the soggy scraps and realizes she may have found something the city desperately needs: a set of instructions left by the Builders, pointing the way out of Ember.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The City of Ember
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 City of Ember. 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 girl trade her dreaded Pipeworks laborer assignment for a boy's messenger job?
✓ Answer
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
Lina dreads the wet, dangerous Pipeworks, and Doon wants the Pipeworks because the generator is there. They trade right after class, and Lina gets the messenger job she wanted most.
- First half
In what book does a long blackout of seven minutes terrify shopkeepers and silence the streets the next morning?
✓ Answer
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
The longest blackout ever had been just over three minutes. When the lights stay out for seven minutes, the residents are too frightened to talk about it the next day, and Lina realizes Doon was right about how serious things are.
- First half
In what book does a librarian named Edward Pocket keep packets of pages tied with stout loops of string?
✓ Answer
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
The library has two big rooms, fact and fiction, with hundreds of bundles of pages on the shelves. Doon goes there to research fire, hoping to invent a movable light, and ancient Edward Pocket sits writing with a tiny pencil.
- Second half
In what book does a boy realize a stone covered in carved squiggles is actually marked with an E?
✓ Answer
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
Doon recognizes the script E on the wrinkled rocks at the west end of the river in The City of Ember.
- Second half
In what book do guards post wanted notices accusing two children of "spreading vicious rumors"?
✓ Answer
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
The chief guard puts up signs naming Doon and Lina to silence them about the mayor's theft in The City of Ember.
- Near the end
In what book do crowds keep singing in pitch blackness when the floodlights cut out mid-festival?
✓ Answer
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
The crowd fills Harken Square for the Singing, and the blackout hits during "The Song of Darkness", the last of the three great songs. The voices falter for only an instant and then rise stronger than before.
