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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSCash, Fitch, and Bird Nelson Thomas are seventh graders at Park Middle School in Park, Delaware, and despite living in the same house they hardly know each other. It's January 1986, and their science teacher, Ms. Salonga, has built the whole month around the upcoming launch of the space shuttle Challenger, splitting her class into pretend flight crews and counting down the days on the board. Cash, the oldest at thirteen, is repeating seventh grade, and after slipping on ice and breaking his wrist he sees an opportunity to finally get close to a girl named Penny Barnard by asking her to sign his cast. Fitch, Cash's younger brother, would rather spend every spare quarter at the arcade on Main mastering a game called Major Havoc than deal with a classmate named Amanda Piper, who keeps calling him by his real name, Henry, no matter how many times he asks her to stop. Bird, Fitch's twin, dreams of becoming NASA's first female shuttle commander, and when the noise of her parents' arguing gets to be too much, she escapes into imaginary conversations with Challenger mission specialist Judith Resnik. With the launch just weeks away and each of the three siblings quietly working out who they want to be, the Nelson Thomas house keeps threatening to shake itself apart.
Free Battle of the Books questions for We Dream of Space
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 We Dream of Space. 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 parents fight because a new VCR failed to record a soap opera?
✓ Answer
We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly
Bird walks into the living room to find her father fiddling with the new machine and her mother furious that her episode of Days of Our Lives taped blank. The argument slides fast from the VCR to her mother's college degree, and Bird eats her cereal and stares at a speck of lint.
- First half
In what book does a boy keep his boom box dial set on exactly four?
✓ Answer
We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly
Fitch picked four because it is loud enough to seal him inside his own music and quiet enough that his parents will not bang on the door. The volume knob is how he shuts out the fighting in the rest of the house.
- First half
In what book does a boy recognize his mother's car by a dent and a Strawberry Shortcake sticker?
✓ Answer
We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly
Cash is wandering the halls avoiding class when he spots the car parked in the pickup circle on what should be an ordinary Monday. Fitch put the dent in the bumper years ago with a wagon, and Bird stuck the sticker on the back window in first or second grade.
- Second half
In what book does a girl imagine an astronaut answering "I am" when she says nobody is listening?
✓ Answer
We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly
Bird holds these conversations in her head at night with Judith Resnik, a real mission specialist she has never met. Right after Fitch tells her she is nothing special, the Judith in her mind is the only one who says her thoughts are worth hearing.
- Second half
In what book must students write an essay to earn a seat watching a shuttle launch in the auditorium?
✓ Answer
We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly
Ms. Salonga announces that the principal will let about a hundred students watch the launch live on television. Most of the class groans at the idea of an optional essay, but Bird is already drafting her first sentence in her head.
- Near the end
In what book does a teacher tell her grieving class, "Never mistake size for might"?
✓ Answer
We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly
Two days after the disaster, Ms. Salonga answers the students who kept asking what the point of exploring was. She uses a single grain of sand to explain it, and Cash, who tunes out most lectures, cares a great deal about this one.
