Sequels to Classic Children's Books Quiz

Answer: Peter Pan

The character of Peter Pan was created by J M Barrie, and first appeared in a 1902 novel for adults entitled "The Little White Bird". However, it was not until 1904, in the play "Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up", that Barrie introduced such well-known features of the story as the Darling children, Never-land, and Captain Hook. Geraldine McCaughrean's "official" sequel was published in 2006.

The other options are fictional characters, all of whom appear in books with the word "Scarlet" in the title - perhaps I can leave it up to you to identify them?

Answer: The Willows Underwater

William Horwood first came to notice with his 1980 novel "Duncton Wood", which was all about moles. He followed this with five more "Duncton" novels, but even these were not enough to sate his interest in small black burrowing mammals, and in 1993 he produced the "The Willows in Winter", one of whose main characters is (of course) a mole.

Answer: Son

Children never tire of the "Railway" stories, and neither it seems did the Awdry family. The Reverend Wilbert (1911-1997) wrote 26 of these books between 1945 ("The Three Railway Engines") and 1972 ("Tramway Engines"). His son Christopher wrote the first of his sequels, "Really Useful Engines", in 1983; by 2010, he had written a total of 15 more books, with "Thomas and Victoria" (2007) being so far the most recent.

Answer: Mr Men and Little Misses

Roger Hargreaves wrote almost 90 books about the "Mr Men" and "Little Misses" between 1971 and his death in 1988, before his son Adam took up his pen in 1990. There is a tendency among some middle-class parents to deride the "Mr Men" books for their "formulaic" storylines and language and "simplistic" brightly-coloured illustrations, forgetting that these are precisely the things that make them attractive and appealing to children.

Answer: Alice Through the Needle's Eye

Gilbert Adair was born in Edinburgh in 1944. "Alice Through the Needle's Eye" is an enjoyable sequel to Carroll's two books about Alice, and takes her on a journey through the alphabet. Adair has also written a sequel to J M Barrie's "Peter Pan", entitled "Peter Pan and the Only Children", and three Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries.

Answer: Oz

Lyman Frank Baum wrote the first of his Oz novels, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", in 1900, and continued to produce further instalments up until his death in 1919. Ruth Plumly Thompson was invited by Baum's publisher to continue the series, which she did between 1921 (with "The Royal Book of Oz") and 1939 ("Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz"). Following her retirement, other writers, including John R Neill and Jack Snow, added yet more books to the series.

Answer: Anna Sewell

The original "Black Beauty" is subtitled "The Autobiography of a Horse; Translated from the Original Equine by Anna Sewell". It was not in fact written specifically for children, but had the didactic purpose of encouraging the humane treatment of horses.

However, Sewell's sympathetic treatment of the subject led to its being an instant and continuing success. It was her only book, and she died in April 1878, only a few months after its publication. Other sequels to "Black Beauty" included a number written in the 1970s by the three Pullein-Thompson sisters, popular writers of horsey books for children.

Answer: English translator

Johanna Spyri was born in Switzerland in 1827, and her popular children's story "Heidi" first appeared in 1880. Its original German title was "Heidi's Lehr- und Wanderjahr", which translates as "Heidi's Years of Wandering and Learning". Spyri wrote may other novels for both adults and children before her death in 1901, but it was left to her English translator, Charles Tritten, to write two sequels to her best-known work.

Answer: All of these

The first of Laura Ingalls Wilder's stories based on her childhood in late nineteenth-century America was "Little House in the Big Woods", published in 1932. The last published during her lifetime was "These Happy Golden Years" in 1943. She herself died in 1957.

The rights to her books passed after her death to Roger Lea Macbride, who in 1993 wrote "Little House on Rocky Ridge", the first of eight books based on the life of Laura's daughter, Rose. In 1996, Maria D Wilkes wrote the first of four books about Caroline, Laura's mother (a series itself continued by Celia Wilkins). Melissa Wiley took the story even further back, writing several fictionalised stories about Laura's grandmother (Charlotte) and great-grandmother (Martha).

Answer: Winnie-the-Pooh

A A Milne wrote two collections of stories about Pooh and his friends; "Winnie-the-Pooh" in 1926, and "The House at Pooh Corner" in 1928. The bear's first appearance in print actually came in February 1924, when Milne's poem "Teddy Bear" was published in the magazine "Punch".

The poem was republished later that year in the verse collection "When We Were Very Young". Milne's other book of verse for children, "Now We Are Six", also includes a number of illustrations featuring Pooh.