Youthful Characters Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jim Hawkins

This novel by Robert Louis Stevenson was published in 1883 and coined the expression, "X marks the spot". Jim Hawkins and his widowed mother run an inn on the west coast of England and come into possession of a map showing where Captain Flint's treasure is buried on an island in the Caribbean. Jim joins the expedition to locate that treasure as a cabin boy and during the journey becomes involved with the infamous pirate Long John Silver.

Answer: Hermione Granger

Hermione Granger is one of the three central characters in the Harry Potter universe created by J.K. Rowling. Her parents are both 'Muggles', non-magical folk, but they accept their daughter's magical abilities and allow her to attend Hogwarts School for magic.

There she meets Harry Potter and Ron Weasley and the three become the focus of the stories of their years at Hogwarts and their struggle against Lord Voldemort. In "The Chamber of Secrets" Hermione is petrified by a glimpse of a basilisk, but her research notes enable Ron and Harry to realise what monster is kept in the Chamber of Secrets beneath the school.

Answer: Peter Pevensie

Peter is the eldest of the four Pevensie children who enter C.S. Lewis's world of Narnia through a wardrobe. There they meet the great Lion Aslan, the Christ-figure for that world of talking animals. Peter slays Maugrim the wolf who heads the White Witch's secret police and later leads Aslan's army into the battle against the Witch and her forces.

At the end of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardobe", he and his two sisters and brother are crowned as kings and queens of Narnia, Peter given the title, "High King Peter the Magnificent".

Answer: Mary Lennox

Frances Hodgson Burnet published "The Secret Garden" in 1911 and it became a children's classic, filmed at least four times. Mary Lennox is an English girl raised in India with an unhappy family life. Orphaned after a plague she is sent to live with her uncle in a house on the Yorkshire moors, where she is unhappy and miserable at first.

But she makes friends with a local boy, Dickon, and later with her cousin Colin, an invalid hidden away in the house. Eventually the three children discover a hidden garden which they bring to life again and Colin realises that he is not a crippled invalid after all.

Answer: Philip Pirrip

The opening line of the novel by Charles Dickens says it all: "My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip." The novel tells the story of how Pip rises from a humble origin to a successful life in London, sponsored by an unknown benefactor whose identity shocks and surprises both Pip and readers.

Answer: Jo March

"Little Women" is the best-known of Louisa May Alcott's many works. It features the four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Jo, the second daughter and central character, is based on the author herself. The book was published in 1868 and is set during and after the Civil War.

Answer: David Balfour

David Balfour is the central character in two novels by Robert Louis Stevenson: "Kidnapped" and "Catriona". In the former, set in 1751, David is a seventeen-year-old Scots boy sent to live with his uncle Ebenezer after his parents die. To prevent David receiving his rightful inheritance his evil uncle has him kidnapped on board the ship "Covenant".

A shipwreck prevents the ship from leaving Scottish waters and David with a friend he has made while on board make their way to the Scottish mainland.

After a number of adventures they force the uncle to reveal his crimes and David comes into his inheritance.

Answer: Laura Ingalls

The television show of the 1970s and 1980s made Laura Ingalls Wilder (played by Melissa Gilbert) a household name. But her books for young people, published first in the 1930s, had already won her a considerable reputation. They tell the story of the Ingalls family and their life in the mid-western states of Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Iowa and the Dakota territory.

She was born in 1867 in Wisconsin and died 90 years later in Missouri.

Answer: Andrew Wiggin

"Enders' Game" (1985) was the first instalment of Orson Scott's Card future history of the encounter between humanity and an insectoid race known as "the Buggers". "Ender" is the nickname of Andrew Wiggin, a third child in a society which is supposed to be limited to two children.

He is recruited to train on the Battle School, a space station orbiting the Earth, where the best and the brightest children are being trained as leaders in the war against the Buggers. There are five novels about Ender and his subsequent career; a series about Bean, one of Ender's friends at the Battle School; and a series of prequels about the initial encounters with the Buggers.

Answer: Meg Murry

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) created a series of interlocking stories involving three families, the Murrys, the O'Keefes and the Austins. The first of these books was "A Wrinkle in Time" (1962), where Meg is the eldest child of two very bright scientists.

Her father has gone missing and with the help of her younger brother Charles, a new friend, Calvin O'Keefe (whom Meg will later marry), and a trio of supernatural "angels", Meg must seek him on the dark planet Camazotz.