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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSStockholm is in the grip of a brutal winter, and at the Public Children's Home, twelve-year-old Mika does much of the real work of running the place while everyone else struggles just to stay warm. Late one night a frightened boy leaves a newborn baby on the orphanage doorstep and disappears into the snow, warning that someone called the Dark Angel knows what he has done. Not long after, a blunt police detective named Valdemar Hoff shows up asking for Mika's help identifying a murdered man, impressed by how much she notices that everyone else misses. The case has unsettling similarities to the Night Raven, a serial killer whose crimes terrorized the city until he was caught and executed months earlier. As Mika and Valdemar follow the clues through frozen streets, a rough tavern, and the orphanage's own hidden records, Mika finds herself pulled into a mystery that reaches further into her own life, and the lives of the city's forgotten children, than she ever expected.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Night Raven
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 Night Raven. 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 is a bar called the Chapel run by a man called the Priest?
✓ Answer
The Night Raven by Johan Rundberg
Mika works three times a week at a Stockholm drinking house with a churchy name, for an owner who is the opposite of a holy man. Amelia thought a bar was no place for a girl, but at nearly thirteen Mika is considered too old for school and a job is a job.
- First half
In what book does a gruff detective start calling a girl Ragamuffin?
✓ Answer
The Night Raven by Johan Rundberg
Valdemar Hoff almost never uses Mika's actual name once he has settled on this one. It stings at first, since her clothes are patched and darned but not ragged, though over the course of the story it turns into something much closer to affection.
- First half
In what book does a man in a suit watch from a round, unbarred prison window?
✓ Answer
The Night Raven by Johan Rundberg
Crossing the yard on the way out, Mika looks up and sees Warden Falk following their every movement, right after he claimed he was far too busy to help. Valdemar Hoff notices too, and it is the first real sign that the prison is hiding something.
- Second half
In what book is a policeman warned that stepping right will replace his guts with nails?
✓ Answer
The Night Raven by Johan Rundberg
Mika brings Constable Valdemar Hoff to meet Tekla, an old orphanage friend who now lives on a walled off building site rigged with stolen dynamite. Tekla lists exactly how the traps would maim him, and when Valdemar whispers that she must be bluffing, Mika shakes her head.
- Second half
In what book does a small girl ask the question "Would you miss me if I disappeared"?
✓ Answer
The Night Raven by Johan Rundberg
Six year old Margit comes up to Mika after dinner, looking in the lamplight like a harmless little ghost. Mika says of course she would miss her, but the question sticks, because Mika knows that a child who stops wanting to eat is already halfway gone.
- Near the end
In what book do people call a limping orphanage girl Hobbler instead of using her real name?
✓ Answer
The Night Raven by Johan Rundberg
Amelia explains that hardly anyone ever used Klara Lind's actual name, and Mika suddenly remembers a short haired girl with kind round eyes. That is the moment the first victim stops being a line on a police list and becomes someone Mika almost knew.
