BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSPoppy Woodlock is a sixth grader who would rather be inside a book than anywhere else, especially one of the Narnia books, and she loves dressing up as her favorite characters. Her family has just moved to Chatlain, Oregon, where her parents are restoring Lark-Hayes Manor, a huge, crumbling mansion in the woods that has sat mostly untouched since 1899. On her first tour, Poppy hears a hissing voice begging for help from the manor's flooded indoor pool, but no one listens to her. At her new middle school nobody seems to notice her, and at home she overhears her parents worrying that her costumes and her belief in magic will leave her behind. So Poppy sneaks back to the manor at night on her yellow dirt bike and uses a parked excavator to free what she thinks is a trapped possum. It turns out to be a water nymph, banished from another world, who offers her a wish. Poppy wishes for a magic lion, the nymph promises a winged one, and the price is something Poppy loves, so she hands over her copy of her favorite book. The next morning she finds a scrawny, silent lion cub with knobby gray wings hiding upstairs and names him Sampson, and soon she secretly moves him into the empty carriage house. But Poppy soon discovers that her deal with the nymph cost far more than a single book.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Lion of Lark-Hayes Manor
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 Lion of Lark-Hayes Manor. 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 sixth grader work an excavator's joystick to free what she thinks is a trapped possum?
✓ Answer
The Lion of Lark-Hayes Manor by Aubrey Hartman
Poppy thinks the glowing eyes in the flooded pool belong to an opossum with its tail pinned under the excavator claw. She has sat on Dad's lap in a Bobcat machine a hundred times, so she turns the key, finds the right control and lifts the claw, freeing a water nymph instead.
- First half
In what book does a soccer ball kicked into the dark woods come back with five holes in it?
✓ Answer
The Lion of Lark-Hayes Manor by Aubrey Hartman
When Holden punts his ball at Poppy's hiding spot, Sampson blocks it with a wing, punctures it with a front paw and kicks it back with a hind leg. Then Sampson rears up in the floodlight looking three times bigger, and Holden runs screaming for his mom.
- First half
In what book does a girl step in an icy puddle and realize the water is flowing uphill?
✓ Answer
The Lion of Lark-Hayes Manor by Aubrey Hartman
Poppy and Sampson are almost to the gate with the wagon of books when her foot splashes into a thin stream trickling from the trees. Water running uphill can only mean one thing, the nymph has come for the books.
- Second half
In what book does a candidate win an election by saying "Maybe it is haunted. Elect me and find out"?
✓ Answer
The Lion of Lark-Hayes Manor by Aubrey Hartman
Poppy's speech falls flat until she promises to hold Readers Club meetings inside the old house her family is restoring. When Holden says the place is haunted, she agrees with him instead of arguing, the class goes wild, and she becomes president.
- Second half
In what book does a once-trendy brother suddenly wear plain white socks and a short haircut with a clean part?
✓ Answer
The Lion of Lark-Hayes Manor by Aubrey Hartman
Luca used to love wild outfits and long curls, but after The Lie Keeper disappears he gives in and gets the neat haircut Mom wanted. He tells Poppy it is just easier to be what their parents want, and she realizes losing a favorite story has changed him.
- Near the end
In what book does a math teacher bake enough brownies for the whole sixth grade, but only one student comes?
✓ Answer
The Lion of Lark-Hayes Manor by Aubrey Hartman
Mrs. Bartholomew is honored to host Readers Club, so she hangs a WELCOME, READERS! banner and brings homemade brownies. No one comes except Poppy, who reads her handwritten version of the lost Narnia story aloud to her teacher.
