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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSOver the same few October days, three kids who live far apart face three different disasters. In California's Sierra Nevada, thirteen-year-old Akira Kristiansen is on a quiet Saturday ride with her horse, Dodger, and her father when they meet a girl named Sue and her dad in a grove of giant sequoias. Then a wildfire that Cal Fire names the Morris Fire comes racing toward them. In Churchill, Manitoba, known as the "Polar Bear Capital of the World," thirteen-year-old Owen Mackenzie gives tours on his parents' tundra buggy, then heads out across the snowy tundra on a snowmobile with his best friend, George, for a weekend at George's family's ice-fishing cabin. And in Hialeah, part of Miami, seventh grader Natalie Torres, who keeps a weather journal and knows her hurricanes by heart, watches the TV news as Hurricane Reuben, the long-feared Big One, heads straight for Miami and the small house she shares with her mother. With their elderly neighbor, Tía Beatriz, and Tía's grumpy Chihuahua, Churro, they get ready to ride it out. Each kid will have to face the danger head-on, and what they live through will change how they see the world.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Two Degrees
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 Two Degrees. 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 tourists hear they look like a "hot dog with mustard and relish" to a polar bear?
✓ Answer
Two Degrees by Alan Gratz
Owen, a thirteen-year-old tour guide, explains that polar bears are the largest land predators on Earth. They might look like big, cute dogs to the tourists, he jokes, but to the bears the tourists look like a big hot dog with mustard and relish.
- First half
In what book does a boy repeat his dad's warning that "the ice never forgets"?
✓ Answer
Two Degrees by Alan Gratz
As Owen and George push the snowmobile across a thin frozen lake, Owen asks George what his dad taught him about ice. George's dad says that even if it is freezing today, a warm weekend before means the ice is thinner than people think, because the ice never forgets.
- First half
In what book does a horse get stuck on a sagging backyard pool cover?
✓ Answer
Two Degrees by Alan Gratz
Akira finds Dodger lying on his side on the blue plastic cover over Nova's pool, half in the water as the cover sags under his weight. With embers setting Nova's roof on fire, Akira and Sue unhook the cover's straps to lower him into the pool.
- Second half
In what book does fire circle a grassy bald, trapping a girl and her horse safely inside?
✓ Answer
Two Degrees by Alan Gratz
Fleeing the flames, Akira rides Dodger into the bald, a big cleared field, and the fire burns the pines all around it while leaving the middle untouched. She apologizes to Dodger and promises to listen the next time he tries to tell her something.
- Second half
In what book does a girl ride a giant wave up to a third-floor balcony on purpose?
✓ Answer
Two Degrees by Alan Gratz
Natalie can't climb the building before the eye wall hits, so she runs down a train car straight into the oncoming wave. It lifts her up to the third-floor balcony, where the woman with orange hair catches her hand.
- Near the end
In what book does a seventh grader with a clipboard silence a noisy crowd and line everyone up?
✓ Answer
Two Degrees by Alan Gratz
When Patience hands Natalie a clipboard, the crowd outside the pantry talks over her until she yells "Everybody stop!" To her amazement, everyone goes quiet and forms a single-file line.
