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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTen-year-old Mary Lennox has grown up in India, ignored by her parents and raised by servants who gave her everything she wanted, leaving her spoiled, selfish, and friendless. When a cholera outbreak kills nearly everyone around her, Mary is discovered alone in her family's deserted bungalow and shipped off to England to live with her reclusive uncle, Archibald Craven, at his sprawling and gloomy estate called Misselthwaite Manor on the Yorkshire moors. Lonely and bored, Mary begins exploring the grounds and hears hints of a mysterious locked garden that no one has entered in ten years, ever since Mr. Craven sealed it shut after his wife died there. As Mary searches for a way in, she befriends a quick-tempered old gardener named Ben Weatherstaff and a friendly robin redbreast, and starts to wonder whether anyone, or anything, is secretly crying somewhere in the long dark corridors of the old house.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Secret Garden
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 Secret Garden. 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 teasing boy dance around a girl singing about silver bells and cockle shells?
✓ Answer
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
While Mary is staying briefly with the English clergyman's family before sailing to England, a boy named Basil teases her with the old nursery rhyme. The cruel nickname Mistress Mary Quite Contrary sticks with her and shapes how she sees herself for much of the story.
- First half
In what book does a moor boy promise, "Tha' art as safe as a missel thrush"?
✓ Answer
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Dickon swears this to Mary as he eats his bread and bacon, vowing never to tell anyone about her hidden place. The missel thrush is a moorland bird whose nest he would never give away, and he means his promise the same way.
- First half
In what book is a sickly boy with agate-gray eyes hidden away in a far wing of a huge manor?
✓ Answer
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Mary finds Colin Craven in a hidden room after following the sound of his fretful crying. His servants are forbidden to speak about him and his father can hardly bear to look at him. Mary's discovery is the turning point that draws the story into its main plot.
- Second half
In what book does a girl examine a thin spine and find no lump bigger than a pin?
✓ Answer
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
During Colin's tantrum, Mary demands the nurse bare his back and she examines every vertebra. She announces there is no lump bigger than a pin, which finally convinces Colin that his terror of growing a hunch is in his imagination.
- Second half
In what book does a sickly boy cry out, "I shall live forever and ever and ever"?
✓ Answer
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The first time Colin is wheeled inside the walls and sees the green and gold and pink springtime, he shouts "I shall live forever and ever and ever!" It is the moment he begins to believe he is not going to die.
- Near the end
In what book do children roast potatoes and eggs in a tiny stone oven in a wooded hollow?
✓ Answer
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Dickon discovers a deep little hollow in the wood where he builds a tiny oven out of stones. They roast eggs and very hot potatoes with salt and fresh butter, which Mary and Colin agree are fit for a woodland king.
