A Quiz About Children’s Authors

Question: For whose own children was the book James and the Giant Peach written?

Answer: Roald Dahlwrote James and the Giant Peach (1961) for his own children.

Question: Who compiled the stories known in English as the Tales of Mother Goose?

Answer: One of the earliest and most enduring classics of children’s literature is Charles Perrault’s fairy-tale collection entitled Contes de ma mère l’oye (1697), which was translated into English in 1729 as Histories, or Tales of Past Times (later, Tales of Mother Goose). Among its stories are “Cinderella,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” and “Puss in Boots.”

Question: What British scholar wrote a series of children’s books called the Chronicles of Narnia?

Answer: C.S. Lewis’s first story for children was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), one of seven tales about the kingdom of Narnia that became the Chronicles of Narnia.

Question: Who wrote the children’s classic Where the Wild Things Are?

Answer: Maurice Sendak wrote Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963. It was part of a trilogy that also included In the Night Kitchen (1970) and Outside over There (1981).

Question: What author featured characters such as Little Noddy, Mr. Plod, and Big Ears who lived in Toyland Village?

Answer: Enid Blyton was a prolific and highly popular British author of stories, poems, plays, and educational books for children. In the 1950s her Little Noddy series, featuring the adventures of Little Noddy, Mr. Plod the policeman, Big Ears, and other characters of Toyland Village, enjoyed enormous popularity and made her a household name.

Question: What children’s book was written by the creator of James Bond?

Answer: In addition to his novels featuring the secret service agent James Bond, Ian Fleming also wrote a children''s book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1964), which was made into a feature film.

Question: Which American essayist associated with The New Yorker magazine wrote the children’s book Stuart Little and revised a classic style manual?

Answer: The American essayist and literary stylist E.B. White’s three books for children—Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte’s Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970)—are considered classics. White joined The New Yorker magazine as a writer and contributing editor in 1927 and remained on its staff for the rest of his career. In 1959 he revised and published a book by the late William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style, which became a standard style manual for writing in English.

Question: Which American author known for her children’s books also wrote under the pen name “A.M. Barnard”?

Answer: Louisa May Alcott was known for her children’s books, especially the classic Little Women. She produced potboilers at first, and many of her stories—notably those signed “A.M. Barnard”—were lurid and violent tales. Alcott’s stories began to appear in The Atlantic Monthly, and, because family needs were pressing, she wrote the autobiographical Little Women (1868–69), which was an immediate success.

Question: Who wrote and illustrated How the Grinch Stole Christmas?

Answer: Theodor Seuss Geisel, who used the pseudonym Dr. Seuss, wrote and illustrated How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1957).

Question: What English author created animal characters such as Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and illustrated her books with her own watercolours?

Answer: Beatrix Potter created Peter Rabbit, Jeremy Fisher, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, and other animal characters. Her tiny books, which she designed so that even the smallest children could hold them, combined a deceptively simple prose with illustrations in the best English watercolour tradition.

Question: Which American writer and cartoonist authored the fantasy for children The 13 Clocks?

Answer: The American writer and cartoonist James Thurber wrote the fantasies for children The 13 Clocks (1950) and The Wonderful O (1957). They are among the most successful fairy tales of modern times.

Question: Who wrote books for children about the imaginary land of Oz?

Answer: L. Frank Baum began his career as a journalist. His first book, Father Goose (1899), was a commercial success, and he followed it the next year with the even more popular The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. A modern fairy tale, it tells the story of Dorothy, a Kansas farm girl who is blown by a cyclone to the land of Oz, where she is befriended by such memorable characters as the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion. Its film version, in 1939, became a cinema classic and was made familiar to later generations of children through television.

Question: What Danish author born in 1805 remains known throughout the world for his fairy tales?

Answer: With his collections of fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen broke new ground in both style and content. Born in 1805 in Denmark, he was an innovator in his method of telling tales.

Question: Which poet is known for his classic formulation of the children’s tale “The Three Bears”?

Answer: Among the many and varied writings of the Romantic-movement-adjacent Robert Southey is the anonymously published The Doctor, 7 vol. (1834–47), a rambling miscellany packed with comment, quotations, and anecdotes; it also includes the children’s classic “The Story of the Three Bears.”)