Literature for grades 1–2: questions with answers

The Literature questions for grades 1–2 from the game, with the correct answers and an explanation for each.

  1. Who wrote the play Romeo and Juliet?

    • Christopher Marlowe
    • William Shakespeare
    • Charles Dickens
    • Oscar Wilde

    Correct answer: William Shakespeare — Shakespeare wrote the tragedy of the two young lovers around 1595, early in his career.

  2. Who collected the German fairy tales Snow White and Hansel and Gretel?

    • Hans Christian Andersen
    • Charles Perrault
    • The Brothers Grimm
    • Aesop

    Correct answer: The Brothers Grimm — Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first collection of folk tales in 1812.

  3. Who wrote The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling?

    • Hans Christian Andersen
    • The Brothers Grimm
    • Charles Perrault
    • Lewis Carroll

    Correct answer: Hans Christian Andersen — Unlike the Grimms, Andersen invented most of his tales himself; he wrote more than 150 of them.

  4. Who wrote the Harry Potter books?

    • J. R. R. Tolkien
    • J. K. Rowling
    • Roald Dahl
    • C. S. Lewis

    Correct answer: J. K. Rowling — The first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997.

  5. Who created Winnie-the-Pooh?

    • Lewis Carroll
    • Roald Dahl
    • Beatrix Potter
    • A. A. Milne

    Correct answer: A. A. Milne — Milne named the bear after a teddy belonging to his son Christopher Robin; the first book appeared in 1926.

  6. Who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

    • Lewis Carroll
    • J. M. Barrie
    • Rudyard Kipling
    • Edward Lear

    Correct answer: Lewis Carroll — Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Dodgson, an Oxford mathematics lecturer; the book came out in 1865.

  7. Who wrote Don Quixote?

    • Lope de Vega
    • Federico García Lorca
    • Miguel de Cervantes
    • Gabriel García Márquez

    Correct answer: Miguel de Cervantes — Cervantes's novel about a knight who reads too many chivalric romances is often called the first modern novel.

  8. What happens to Pinocchio's nose when he tells a lie?

    • It grows
    • It shrinks
    • It turns red
    • It disappears

    Correct answer: It grows — Carlo Collodi's wooden puppet first appeared in an Italian children's magazine in 1881.

  9. Who wrote The Little Prince?

    • Jules Verne
    • Victor Hugo
    • Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
    • Alexandre Dumas

    Correct answer: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry — Saint-Exupéry was a pilot; he published the book in 1943 and vanished on a flight the following year.

  10. What does Cinderella lose as she runs from the ball at midnight?

    • A golden necklace
    • A glass slipper
    • A silver crown
    • A silk glove

    Correct answer: A glass slipper — The glass slipper comes from Charles Perrault's 1697 version of the tale; the Grimms' Cinderella wears gold.

  11. In Andersen's tale, what does the Ugly Duckling grow up to be?

    • A goose
    • A peacock
    • A stork
    • A swan

    Correct answer: A swan — Andersen said the story of the rejected bird who becomes beautiful reflected his own life.

  12. Who is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey?

    • Sophocles
    • Aristotle
    • Virgil
    • Homer

    Correct answer: Homer — The two Greek epics were composed around the 8th century BC and are the oldest works of European literature.

  13. Who wrote War and Peace?

    • Fyodor Dostoevsky
    • Anton Chekhov
    • Leo Tolstoy
    • Alexander Pushkin

    Correct answer: Leo Tolstoy — The novel follows several Russian families through Napoleon's invasion of 1812 and runs to over a thousand pages.

  14. Who wrote The Three Musketeers?

    • Victor Hugo
    • Alexandre Dumas
    • Jules Verne
    • Honoré de Balzac

    Correct answer: Alexandre Dumas — Dumas published the novel in 1844; its motto is "All for one and one for all".

  15. Who wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?

    • Jack London
    • Ernest Hemingway
    • John Steinbeck
    • Mark Twain

    Correct answer: Mark Twain — Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Clemens; Tom's adventures on the Mississippi came out in 1876.

  16. In Aesop's fable, which animal loses a race to the tortoise?

    • The fox
    • The wolf
    • The lion
    • The hare

    Correct answer: The hare — The hare naps in the middle of the race and loses; the fable is the origin of "slow and steady wins the race".

  17. Who created Pippi Longstocking?

    • Astrid Lindgren
    • Tove Jansson
    • Hans Christian Andersen
    • Selma Lagerlöf

    Correct answer: Astrid Lindgren — The Swedish author published the first Pippi book in 1945; she is the strongest girl in the world and lives alone with a horse and a monkey.

  18. Which author wrote Around the World in Eighty Days?

    • H. G. Wells
    • Jules Verne
    • Alexandre Dumas
    • Daniel Defoe

    Correct answer: Jules Verne — Phileas Fogg makes the journey to win a bet of 20,000 pounds; Verne published the novel in 1873.

  19. Aladdin and his magic lamp is a tale from which collection?

    • Aesop's Fables
    • Grimm's Fairy Tales
    • The Arabian Nights
    • The Canterbury Tales

    Correct answer: The Arabian Nights — The Arabian Nights, or One Thousand and One Nights, is a collection of Middle Eastern tales; Aladdin was added by the French translator Antoine Galland in the 18th century.

  20. Where do Peter Pan and the Lost Boys live?

    • Neverland
    • Wonderland
    • Narnia
    • Oz

    Correct answer: Neverland — J. M. Barrie introduced the boy who would not grow up in a 1904 play and a 1911 novel.

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