Beasts in books

From the following hints, can you identify characters of the beasts in some of the popular children books?

1. The Sheep___  is a 1983 book by Dick King-Smith set in rural England. The writer had been a farmer for about twenty years and based many of his books on his experiences. This particular book tells the story of a certain animal that the farmer wins, which then takes on the role of a completely different animal after being adopted by the farmer’s dog. What was the name of this animal (which became famous after a movie adaptation by the same name) and what kind of animal was he (fill in the blank in the title)?

2. In his classic children’s book The Trumpet of the ___, E.B. White tells the story of Louis, who is born mute and whose parents despaired of him never being able to communicate. He goes to school to learn to read and write, but this doesn’t help him win the love of his life. Then, his father steals a trumpet for him and he becomes a sensation-a world-famous musician. What kind of animal is the protagonist of this book? The title of the book is a pun on its particular species.

3. This 1923 book by the Austrian author Felix Salten is titled , a Life in the Woods and tells the story of an animal, brought up by his mother, in a forest. The story traces his life from that of a baby to an adult, dealing with a variety of learning experiences, especially the most important lesson of all-that humans are dangerous! The book was translated into English in 1928, and it was turned into a famous movie in 1942. What is the name of the title character and what kind of animal is he in the book?

4. Judith Kerr was a beloved writer and illustrator of children’s books and one of her most famous books is The _____ Who Came to Tea. Given that Kerr and her family had fled from Nazi Germany, many adult readers and critics often wondered if the events and, title character in the book were metaphors for Nazis   or Nazism. When asked, Kerr replied, patiently and slowly, ‘It is the story of a    who came to tea.’ What greedy animal did Kerr write about?

5. In Rudyard Kipling’s delightful Just So Stories, the story of The ___’s Child is a humorous story about how a certain animal got its characteristic feature.  It tells the tale of a young animal whose insatiable curiosity about what a crocodile has for dinner leads him right to the Limpopo river where the crocodile lives. When the crocodile tries to eat him for dinner, the young animal, with the help of a python, pulls away from the crocodile, leading to a certain part of his body being stretched out. What is the title of the story and, therefore, what kind of animal was this curious youngster?

6. In the Harry Potter series, Harry’s pet, Hedwig, is as beloved to readers as any other character in the books or movies. Indeed, Hedwig is indispensable to Harry, carrying his letters to and fro and bringing him parcels from all his friends whenever he has to spend his summer holidays holed up at home with his dreadful uncle, aunt and cousin. Introduced to us quite early in the very first book, what kind of animal is Hedwig?

7. This character in Rudyard Kipling’s famous Jungle Book is the leader of his pack and one of the mentors of Mowgli, the human they adopt. What kind of animal is he and what is his name, which, quite fittingly, in Hindi or Urdu, means ‘lone’?

8. A ____ in  Times  Square  is  an award-winning children’s book by George Selden, and tells the story of Chester, a young animal from Connecticut who lands up in Times Square, New York. He makes friends with a family who run a newsstand there. Along with a cat and a mouse, who also live in the newsstand, he explores the city and, in the course of the story, reveals his great talent for making music, being able to reproduce all manners of great songs and tunes! What kind of animal is Chester (fill in the blanks in the title)?

9. Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece, Alice in Wonderland, had many interesting and intriguing animals gambolling through its pages. Alice meets a dormouse, a Cheshire cat, a Dodo and many, many others. However, most of these animals are independent and she meets them in social settings or as she wanders about. What animals does she see being used by the Queen of Hearts to play a game of croquet? One particular animal is wielded as the mallet (the small hammer) while the other animal serves as the ball.

10. In a Ruskin Bond story called A ___ for all Seasons, we see the world and the foolishness of human actions through the eyes of Speedy, who is a very clever animal. Speedy’s wry utterances and observations make up the story and no one can deny how smart his entire species is! After all, videos on the Internet have shown that they use traffic signals to cross the roads, while a popular folktale talks about how they use available resources to access tiny amounts of water. What kind of animal is Speedy, seen increasingly in many Indian cities?

Answers: 1. Pig; Babe | 2. Swan, Louis is a Trumpeter Swan | 3. Bambi; a roe deer |  4. A tiger | 5. The Elephant’s Child, an elephant | 6. A snowy owl | 7. A wolf; Akela | 8. A cricket; Cricket | 9. A flamingo (mallet) and a hedgehog (ball) | 10. A crow

—Excerpted from The amazing nature Quiz by Berty Ashley and Akhila Phadnis.