"Gathering Blue," by Lois Lowry Quiz

Answer: Solora

Solora died around the same time Kira's mother did, when giving birth to their third child. Her other children, Dan and Mar, will be given away to people who don't have any of their own.

Answer: Carrots

Led by Vandara, the women of the village decide that they hate Kira and that she should be left in the Field for the beasts, so they don't mind stealing from her. The women also take Kira's land to build a pen for their tykes.

Answer: False

Kira neglects to bow to the Council of Guardians, but she does bow in front of the Worship-object. Vandara comes into the Council of Edifice barefoot and with a dirty face, and Kira hopes that she will make a better impression since she took the time to wash.

But then Vandara bows to both the Council of Guardians AND the Worship-object and Kira is worried that she did something wrong by not bowing.

Answer: Oleander

"She's hard, that Vandara. She killed her own tyke, they say. Made him eat the oleander, they say," Matt tells Kira. Later Kira's father, Christopher, tells Kira of the accident that gave Vandara her scars, when her child slipped on wet rocks and grabbed her skirt.

Answer: His tail is crooked

Matt found Branch lying by the side of the road. The little dog had been hit by a car and injured, but nobody cared. Matt nursed him back to health and used a branch to splint up his tail (hence the name Branch--or "Branchie" as Matt likes to call him). Only the tail still healed crooked.

Answer: No

It is a sparkly purple rock, probably a geode. Matt saved it before Kira's house was burned because, "It be all purply. And shiny-like."

Answer: Hollyhock

Kira--who can't read because girls aren't allowed to learn--notices that the word "hollyhock" is "long, with many lines like tall stems," and that "goldenrod" and "greenwood" begin and end with the same shapes. She likes how the words "tell the story of a name."

Answer: A box carved with plants used for dyeing

Among the plants carved on the box are yarrow and coreopsis. Kira loves it and decides right away that she'll keep her special scrap of cloth in it. That is when Thomas tells her that he has a small piece of wood that also has special meaning to him.

Answer: Yes

People from the Fen speak slightly differently than people in the rest of the village. Kira doesn't notice that Annabella speaks that way until she tells Thomas about her saying, "There be no beasts," and Kira and Thomas wonder if perhaps Annabella grew up in the Fen.

Answer: A cat or a goat

Thomas hears the crying several times and is troubled by it. Eventually he and Kira decide to go exploring and see what it is, because, as Matt points out, "Noise don't never be NOTHING."

Answer: True

Kira identifies Jamison to Matt by telling him that, "He always wears one of Thomas's carvings. Quite a nice one, with an outline of a tree."

Answer: The handle of a hairbrush

Thomas's room is right above Jo's, so he tells her to climb the chest of drawers and thump the ceiling with the hairbrush handle--but only when she really needs them--and he and Kira will come as soon as they can.

Answer: The leather cord that ties back her hair

Kira trades the leather cord only to be given the confusing information that Matt has gone "yonder" to get her some blue.

Answer: The sky on a sunny summer-start morning

Matt brings Kira "blue" by bringing her a woad plant and a man wearing a blue shirt. Kira doesn't know why she brought the man until he reveals that his name is Christopher, and that he is her father.

Answer: Jamison

Kira always thought that beasts took her father, and that he was dead, so it is as a huge shock to her that he is alive and that a man as nice as Jamison seems to be could have tried to kill him, but it just shows what people will do when they are jealous.