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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSJoanna Stanton and her twin brother, Howe, are barely speaking to each other anymore, even though they live in the same tiny farmhouse in the Oklahoma panhandle in January 1935. Joanna has scoliosis, and her mother's constant worry about her back leaves her stuck doing light chores while everyone else works the failing wheat farm. Howe has a secret of his own: a hidden notebook full of poems he is too scared to show anyone, especially their father, who insists a farmer cannot make a living writing rhymes. When the family's bank debts and a run of brutal dust storms force their father to head to California for work, leaving Joanna and Howe behind with their mother and older brother Lou, the twins are forced to figure out how to save their home, and each other, before the dust takes everything they have left.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Where Only Storms Grow
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 Where Only Storms Grow. 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 stunned bluebird smack into a farmhouse kitchen window?
✓ Answer
Where Only Storms Grow by Alyssa Colman
Joanna is scrubbing a burned pot when the bird knocks himself out on the glass. She nurses him back to health, he moves into the barn rafters, and he becomes the book's symbol of hope.
- First half
In what book does a nurse surprise a girl by telling her she has scoliosis too?
✓ Answer
Where Only Storms Grow by Alyssa Colman
Joanna has never met another person with scoliosis, so Nurse Evelyn saying it so casually knocks her sideways. Evelyn becomes the first person who treats Joanna's back as a fact to manage rather than something to be pitied.
- First half
In what book does a boy's poem recall a classmate swallowing a grasshopper for a penny?
✓ Answer
Where Only Storms Grow by Alyssa Colman
One of Howe's poems remembers the summer the locusts came and a dare Jesse made at recess. Lionel took the bet, swallowed the bug, collected his shiny penny, and then reported on exactly how crunchy it was.
- Second half
In what book does someone nickname a mix of snow flurries and blowing dirt a snuster?
✓ Answer
Where Only Storms Grow by Alyssa Colman
Joanna remembers a Sunday when it was cold enough to snow after church and everyone tried to catch the flurries, until a duster arrived and pelted them with cold blobs of mud. The made up word captures how upside down the weather had gotten in the Oklahoma panhandle.
- Second half
In what book does a man with a black eye offer to dig out a family's buried fence posts?
✓ Answer
Where Only Storms Grow by Alyssa Colman
Grant Haynes got the shiner from farmers who did not care to hear about cover crops, and he shows up early with a shovel anyway. Instead of digging he ends up driving Mama to the Red Cross hospital, which is the moment Howe starts to trust him.
- Near the end
In what book do three siblings decide to sell their father's horse to make an overdue loan payment?
✓ Answer
Where Only Storms Grow by Alyssa Colman
Joanna, Howe, and Lou take inventory of everything the family owns and keep landing on Pie, the piebald mare Daddy loves best. They agree to ask around at church on Palm Sunday, and all three of them feel sick about it.
