Myth-taking Children's Books Trivia Quiz

Answer: Unicorn

Arabella is the queen of the unicorns and an ancestor of the protagonist Cara Hunter, who enters the world of Luster to stop unicorns from being hunted to extinction. Being descended from unicorns, Cara has the ability to turn into one, which she does later in Bruce Coville's series, and becomes a horse with a single horn emerging from her head.

Answer: Djinni

In Jonathan Stroud's series, Bartimaeus is a 5000-year-old djinni who is summoned by a boy in an alternate 1900s London. The boy means for the djinni to do his bidding, but things don't go as planned. Bartimaeus narrates his action in a sarcastic, humorous tone, and the text uses multiple footnotes.

Djinnis, or genies, are spirits from Arabian mythology. They can be deceitful or helpful and are often associated with dust storms, though they can take many animal forms as well.

Answer: Centaur

Chiron is a physician and teacher of heroes, both in Greek mythology and Rick Riordan's series. He is more civilized and intelligent than other centaurs, creatures with a human torso atop a horse's body. In the human world, he poses as a teacher in a wheelchair to hide his horse legs. At Camp Half-blood, he is a camp director and aids the demigods in developing their skills.

Answer: Phoenix

In J.K. Rowling's series, Fawkes is a red-gold phoenix (a bird that bursts into flames periodically and is reborn from ashes) who belongs to the wizard Albus Dumbledore. His feathers reside in the wands of Harry, the protagonist, and Voldemort, the antagonist.

His flight and healing powers are of great assistance in book two when Harry fights a basilisk, a large serpent whose glance is fatal.

Answer: Dragon

Glory is introduced in the first book, "The Dragonet Prophecy". She is raised alongside other dragons who are prophesized to bring an end to a war between the dragon tribes. The third book, "The Hidden Kingdom", is told from her point-of-view.

Depictions of dragons vary from culture to culture and story to story. Tui T. Sutherland's dragons have two wings, scales, and different colors depending on their tribe. Some breath fire, some ice, and some breathe underwater.

Answer: Goblin

Hogsqueal is a hobgoblin, a small, mischievous creature, who works for the main villain, an ogre called Mulgarath. However, he's not a pure villain and sometimes does good things. Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black collaborate on these books in which three children discover a world of magical creatures.

Answer: Elf

Holly is the first female elf Captain in the LEPRecon intelligence force and is desperate to prove she can do the job. Artemis is a young criminal mastermind who kidnaps her, then finds the two must work together. In this Eion Colfer series, elves are a type of fairy. They are about a meter tall and used to have wings before they lost them due to evolution.

Answer: Mermaid

In the first book of Liz Kessler's series, Emily discovers she's a mermaid. Shona is her friend who helps her find her father...and that's only the first of many adventures. While mermaids typically have a tail where human legs should be and don't transform, Emily grows a tail when in water and regains legs when on land.

Answer: Brownie

Humans are about to flood the valley where dragons live, so a dragon, a human boy, and the brownie Sorrel travel to find a place for dragons to live peacefully. Cornelia Funke also wrote the series "Inkheart".

A brownie is a creature from Scottish/Gaelic mythology that appears at night and does household chores. They can be quite mischievous.

Answer: Pegasus

Star is the protagonist of Jennifer Lynn Alvarez's series. He is a black foal; one is born every hundred years, and his existence either unites or destroys the pegasus herds. The four books show us which he does.

A pegasus is a horse with wings. In Greek mythology, there is only one, Pegasus, who sprang from the head of Medusa.