BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSEleven-year-old Nathan has grown up believing his family are Kast, aliens who came to Earth on a ship called the Wagon and who brush with special pink toothpaste every day to hold their human disguise. On his family's first vacation, in Florida, Nathan feels a strange bump on his lower back. It turns out to be a tail, and that means something has gone badly wrong. His parents lock him in his room, and two odd, unhappy messengers called D.P.s show up to take the family back to the Wagon to see Hester, the person everyone answers to. Before he leaves, Nathan finally tells his best friend Victor the secret he has kept his whole life. He also can't stop thinking about Izzy, the one Kast kid his age he has ever met in person, who stopped texting him and disappeared almost a month before. What Nathan finds when he reaches the Wagon raises far more questions than answers, about Izzy, about his tail, and about what his family has really been doing there all along.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Experiment
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 Experiment. 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 boy find a bump on his lower back while pulling up swim trunks?
✓ Answer
The Experiment by Rebecca Stead
It happens on the fourth morning of the family's first ever vacation, in a Florida motel room, and Nathan starts shouting. His dad walks in, takes one look, and tells him it looks like a tail.
- First half
In what book does a hungry girl drop a torn napkin corner showing a tiny six?
✓ Answer
The Experiment by Rebecca Stead
Izzy pretends to drop something as she is led away from the banquet, and Nathan picks up a ripped scrap of a pizza napkin. That tiny number is her way of telling him where she is being kept.
- First half
In what book does a friend notice a boy's tail matches a comic strip tiger's tail?
✓ Answer
The Experiment by Rebecca Stead
Victor freezes on his way out the door, picks up the poster, and points out that the orange fur and dark stripes match perfectly. Nathan says it could be a coincidence, but neither boy really believes that.
- Second half
In what book does a numbered list explain how to sneak aboard a spaceship without permission?
✓ Answer
The Experiment by Rebecca Stead
Nathan and Victor take the train to Altoona alone, and their trip is laid out like a set of instructions. Step two is discovering that the gate opens for his mother's face but not for his.
- Second half
In what book do kids scrub moss off gray bars with brushes on long sticks?
✓ Answer
The Experiment by Rebecca Stead
The kids held in Section Six are called Scrubbers, and they climb rolling staircases every day to clean the bars over the ship. Nobody has ever told them officially why the moss matters so much.
- Near the end
In what book does a woman stay young by soaking in alien spores?
✓ Answer
The Experiment by Rebecca Stead
Hester admits she has been bathing in the Kast for well over two centuries, which is why she never ages. She calls it one of the side benefits of her work and complains that Nathan wasted a batch by falling in.
