Young Male Leads in Fiction Trivia Quiz

Answer: Philip Pirrip

"Pip", as the narrator informs us in the opening sentence, is all that the very young Philip Pirrip could manage to pronounce his name. The story takes Pip from a young age through into adulthood, but the events of his early life remain fixed in the minds of readers: meeting the convict in the marsh, acting as a companion to the eccentric Miss Havisham, and his 'romance' with Estella. Dickens's original ending has Pip and Estella meet after many years, before going their own ways at the end, but he re-wrote their encounter to suggest that they will have a future together.

Answer: Tom Canty

This was Mark Twain's first venture into historical fiction. The time is the mid-16th century in England, in the last years of King Henry VIII. Tom Canty is a poor London boy, living in the marvellously named "Offal Court", to whom a local priest has given a basic education.

He is also the exact double of Edward, Crown Prince of England. One day they meet outside the palace, and Edward invites the poor Tom Canty inside. There they decide to switch clothes and roles. The Prince experiences the appalling life of the poor, while Tom takes on the role of Prince.

But then Henry VIII dies ...

Answer: Jim Hawkins

This is the great boys' story from the 19th century. It has just about everything an adventure needs: a blind beggar, the black spot, a treasure map, X marks the spot, a sea voyage to a distant island, a one-legged pirate with a parrot, and a back-and-forth plot. Most of the novel is told by young Jim Hawkins who, with his mother, runs an inn on the south coast of England. And then one day a sailor named Billy Bones comes to stay in their inn, telling Jim to keep his eye out for a one-legged seafarer.

Answer: Mowgli

Rudyard Kipling was born in India in 1865 and his life there strongly influenced many of his writings. "The Jungle Book" is a collection of stories about animals with human characteristics, not just about Mowgli, the abandoned human child raised by a family of wolves, but about other animals as well (especially Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the mongoose). Mowgli's companions, Akela the chief wolf, Baloo and Bagheera his guardians, and Shere Khan the tiger who seeks to kill the young boy, have become familiar figures in the canon of youth literature.

Answer: John Trenchard

J. Meade Falkner's "Moonfleet" may remind the reader of Stevenson's "Treasure Island" in that it is set on the south coast of England, the main character lives with a female relative, the local inn features prominently, and the plot concerns the search for a treasure.

But the quest does not take the young narrator overseas; rather he remains in England. Although he does get himself involved on the wrong side of the law, John Trenchard holds the reader's sympathy throughout and, unlike "Treasure Island", there is a romantic theme which ends happily, though long in coming, for the two lovers.

Answer: Frank Hardy

Moving into stories from the 20th century, "The Tower Treasure" is attributed to Franklin W. Dixon, in fact a pen name for a variety of writers who produced this very popular series about Frank Hardy and his younger brother Joe. They are the sons of a detective in the fictional seaside town of Bayport who, with their friends, take on and solve a number of cases.

A humorous description of the difference between the two brothers was "Frank has dark hair, Joe is blond". In 1959 the earlier books in the series were re-written, both to update the background and to dispel some unpleasant racial stereotyping.

Answer: John Walker

Arthur Ransome published the twelve novels known as "Swallows and Amazons" between 1930 and 1947. They are set in a four-year period around 1930 and feature a recurring cast of children from three families, most ranging in age from eight to fourteen. Five are the Walkers, of whom the eldest is John, the sensible and dependable leader; next there are the Blackett sisters, the eldest Nancy being an aspiring pirate; and then the Ds, Dick and Dorothea, he a scientist and she a would-be writer. They have a variety of outdoor adventures, but at the heart is sailing, Ransome's favourite recreation. Five of the stories take place in the Lake District where Ransome lived for many years, four in East Anglia, and three are imagined adventures -- to an island in the Caribbean, the South China Sea, and the Hebrides.

They have become classics in children's literature, especially as examples of the adventures of resourceful children in the great outdoors.

Answer: Jody Baxter

Back to the States for this very popular novel set in the 1870s by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Jody Baxter lives with his parents in the wilds of central Florida, where they struggle to make ends meet. Jody, twelve years old in the novel, has a variety of adventures involving friends, family and especially animals.

He adopts a fawn (Flag) but as the deer grows to adulthood it starts to ravage the corn crops on which the family subsist and Jody must make a difficult decision.

Answer: Joe Carraclough

The most famous Lassie is the collie from the American TV series of the 1950s and 1960s, but the original comes from a story by Eric Knight, set in the north of England. Joe Carraclough is twelve years old and has a pet collie named Lassie who waits for him every day at the school gate. One day she is not there as his parents have sold her to a nasty rich lord because they desperately need the money.

The novel relates Lassie's adventures to return to Joe. In the book title "Come-Home" refers to a cynical comment made that Joe's parents have trained the dog to return and sold her knowing that she would return, being one of 'yer come-home dogs'.

The movie title drops the hyphen, suggesting an emotional appeal by Joe.

Answer: Peter Pevensie

This was the first of "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis, which instantly became a classic, read by both children and adults. It begins: "Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy". Sent away during the air-raids on London during World War II to a professor's house in the country, they discover a wardrobe which leads to the world of Narnia.

There they find a land where the White Witch rules, where it always winter and never spring. With the aid of Aslan the great lion, the Narnian Christ-figure, they defeat the Witch and her forces and become kings and queens of Narnia, Peter known as "the Magnificent".

His name may have been chosen deliberately to suggest Simon Peter, the leader of the Apostles.