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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSIn the spring of 1948, twelve-year-old Nick Spirakis and his friends play a made-up kind of baseball called Scramble inside their city's zoo, where a rhinoceros named Tank lives behind the right-field fence. Nick's Greek immigrant parents expect him to work every Saturday in his father's shoe repair and hat shop and to go to Greek school every Tuesday. When the new owner of the city's minor league team, the Mudpuppies, announces a "Mudpuppy for a Day" batboy contest with a field skills round and an essay of one hundred words or fewer, Nick is desperate to enter. But the contest is on a Saturday, his father says no, and Nick can't catch a fly ball. With his best friend Ace, a bully named Pete to beat, a tall new girl named Penny who can throw like nobody else, and an uncle who seems to be hiding something, Nick has to find a way in.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Rhino in Right Field
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 Rhino in Right Field. 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 do two boys see an uncle's car turn south, not toward his supposed night school?
✓ Answer
The Rhino in Right Field by Stacy DeKeyser
Uncle Spiro says he's off to night school, but Nick and Ace watch his car head toward the viaduct and the factories instead of downtown. Ace jokes that he might be meeting a girl, but Nick decides that if his uncle has a secret, he won't be the one to tell it.
- First half
In what book does a boy trim his contest essay from a hundred and sixteen words to ninety-nine?
✓ Answer
The Rhino in Right Field by Stacy DeKeyser
On the floor of Ace's bedroom, Nick's first draft comes out too long for the hundred-word limit. He erases his signature, crosses out one "I would be the best," and keeps cutting until he reaches ninety-nine.
- First half
In what book does a pop fly fall into a girl's glove "like an egg dropping into a nest"?
✓ Answer
The Rhino in Right Field by Stacy DeKeyser
Nick pops up a pitch, and Penny freezes, steps back, raises her arms, and steps forward right under it. Nick calls it a thing of beauty, and she offers to give him a few pointers on reading the ball.
- Second half
In what book does a team owner prop his argyle feet on a desk beside a giant mustard jar?
✓ Answer
The Rhino in Right Field by Stacy DeKeyser
When Nick, Ace and Penny drop by the team office, Joe Daggett is on the phone insisting that you can't put yellow mustard on a hot dog, only spicy brown. He greets them with his black-and-yellow argyle socks propped on a desk piled with papers, right next to a gallon jar of the yellow mustard he is sending back.
- Second half
In what book do swimming monkeys climb into a rowboat that has no oars?
✓ Answer
The Rhino in Right Field by Stacy DeKeyser
The zoo is getting ready for its big Spring Opening, and a zookeeper launches a wooden rowboat into the moat at Monkey Island. Nick tells Penny the monkeys swim out to it, climb in and float around, and then jump back into the water.
- Near the end
In what book does a parading giraffe pluck a cap off a boy's head in the front row?
✓ Answer
The Rhino in Right Field by Stacy DeKeyser
During the live broadcast of the caravan, Bob notices that the top of the giraffe cage is open just as the giraffe he calls the mama snatches a baseball cap off a lad in the front row of the bleachers. Ray jokes that he hopes the kid doesn't mind giraffe slobber.
