99 Fun Facts About YA Book

Who wrote The Hunger Games trilogy?

Suzanne Collins got the idea while channel surfing between a reality TV competition and footage of a real war.

In The Hunger Games, what are the boy and girl each district sends to the arena called?

Tributes. A yearly lottery called the reaping picks them as punishment for the districts' failed rebellion, and they fight until only one remains.

The prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes follows which Hunger Games character as a teenager?

Coriolanus Snow. At 18 the future president mentors Lucy Gray Baird, District 12's girl in the 10th Games, and secretly cheats to keep her alive.

Veronica Roth's Divergent is set in a post-apocalyptic version of which city?

Chicago. During a game of capture the flag, Tris climbs the abandoned Ferris wheel at Navy Pier to spot the other team.

In Divergent, Beatrice Prior leaves her birth faction to join which one?

Dauntless. Her brother Caleb also leaves their selfless Abnegation family, shocking their parents by choosing Erudite.

In Twilight, Bella Swan moves from Phoenix, Arizona, to which small town?

Forks, Washington. The rainy former logging town now hosts a Forever Twilight in Forks festival every September.

In which Twilight Saga book does Edward leave Bella, who turns to her friend Jacob Black?

New Moon. When a misunderstanding convinces Edward that Bella is dead, he goes to Italy to make the Volturi kill him, and she races there to stop him.

The title of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars comes from a line in which Shakespeare play?

Julius Caesar. In the novel, author Peter Van Houten writes that Shakespeare was never more wrong than when Cassius said the fault is not in our stars.

The Fault in Our Stars is dedicated to Esther Earl, a friend of the author who died of what at 16?

Thyroid cancer. Green had met Esther at a Harry Potter conference in 2009, and she inspired his narrator Hazel, who has the same cancer.

Which John Green novel once topped the American Library Association's list of most-challenged books?

Looking for Alaska. Challengers objected mainly to its offensive language and a sexually explicit scene, making it the most-challenged book of 2015.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians is a series by which author?

Rick Riordan. Percy began as a bedtime story for his son Haley, who asked for tales of Greek heroes and then told him to write it as a book.

S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders is set, though never explicitly stated, in which city?

Tulsa, Oklahoma. Francis Ford Coppola later filmed it there after a Fresno school librarian sent him her pupils' petition to adapt the book.

Why did S. E. Hinton publish The Outsiders under her initials?

So male reviewers would not dismiss a woman's book: her publisher suggested Susan Eloise Hinton go by S. E. instead.

In Lois Lowry's The Giver, what role is 12-year-old Jonas selected for?

Receiver of Memory. A recording of his father releasing a newborn twin shows Jonas that 'release', the gentle word for going Elsewhere, really means being killed.

In Speak, freshman Melinda Sordino is ostracised after doing what at a summer party?

Calling the police. No one knows she called because a senior had raped her there, so classmates shun her for breaking up the party.

Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park is set in 1986-87 in which city?

Omaha, Nebraska. In 2013 a Minnesota parent's complaint about its profanity got Rowell's school and library talks there cancelled.

Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows is set mainly in Ketterdam, a city loosely inspired by which real one?

Amsterdam. Bardugo wanted an influence from the 1700s Dutch Republic, and her young criminals plot to break a scientist out of Fjerda's Ice Court.

Bardugo's debut Shadow and Bone follows orphan Alina Starkov in Ravka, a land inspired by which country?

Russia. During a monster attack on the Shadow Fold, a darkness splitting Ravka, orphan Alina discovers she is a Sun Summoner.

Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give grew from a college short story reacting to which police shooting?

Oscar Grant, killed in Oakland in 2009. Thomas first wrote the story as her Belhaven University senior project, and publishers later fought a bidding war for the novel.

Who narrates The Hate U Give?

Starr Carter. She is the only witness when a police officer shoots her childhood friend Khalil at a traffic stop, and must decide whether to speak out.

In Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why, how does Hannah Baker leave her thirteen reasons?

On cassette tapes. Seven of them arrive in the mail with orders to pass them to each person named, and Clay listens to them all in one night.

In The Maze Runner, what is the illness devastating the world outside the maze called?

The Flare. The organisation WICKED sends immune teenagers through the maze as test subjects in its hunt for a cure.

Ransom Riggs's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was built around what?

Vintage found photographs. Riggs collected them at flea markets and planned a picture book, until his Quirk Books editor suggested building a novel around them.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower follows Charlie's freshman year in a suburb of which city?

Pittsburgh. Chbosky drew on his own Pittsburgh memories and later shot the 2012 film there, including the Fort Pitt Tunnel ride where Charlie feels infinite.

Which teenage habit of Jenny Han's inspired her novel To All the Boys I've Loved Before?

Writing love letters to her crushes, which Han did as a teen; in the novel, Lara Jean's five secret letters are mailed without her knowing.

Becky Albertalli's debut novel, whose title parodies 'homosexual agenda', was filmed as what?

Love, Simon. Simon falls for an anonymous classmate over email, until a blackmailer threatens to out him to the school.

Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone follows Zélie Adebola trying to restore magic to which kingdom?

Orïsha. Adeyemi took its spell names from Yoruba with her Nigerian mother's help, and wrote the story partly in response to police brutality.

In Karen M. McManus's One of Us Is Lying, what kills the gossip-app creator during detention?

A peanut allergy. Police find his water was laced with peanut oil, and he had been about to post secrets about the classmates in detention with him.

Marissa Meyer's first Lunar Chronicles novel retells which fairy tale as science fiction?

Cinderella. Cinder is a cyborg mechanic in New Beijing, and at Prince Kai's ball she loses her ill-fitting robotic foot on the palace steps.

Marie Lu has said her dystopian novel Legend was inspired in part by which film?

Les Misérables. Lu wanted a teen version of its criminal-versus-detective chase, so military prodigy June hunts the outlaw Day.

Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass follows Celaena Sardothien, who has what profession?

Assassin. After a year in the slave camp of Endovier, she is offered her freedom if she beats thieves and killers to become the king's champion.

In Scott Westerfeld's Uglies, what does everyone undergo at 16 to become 'Pretty'?

Cosmetic surgery. The operation also secretly leaves brain lesions that make new Pretties docile, a truth Tally learns at the Smoke.

Eoin Colfer pitched Artemis Fowl as which action film 'with fairies'?

Die Hard. Here the hostage-taker is 12-year-old mastermind Artemis, who kidnaps fairy officer Holly Short for a ransom of gold.

Which best-selling novelist brought the self-published Eragon to Knopf?

Carl Hiaasen. On a Montana fishing trip, his stepson found the self-published book in a shop, and Hiaasen passed it to his publisher, Knopf.

In Louis Sachar's Holes, Stanley Yelnats is sent to which juvenile detention facility?

Camp Green Lake, which has no lake: it dried up long ago, and the boys must dig a hole a day in its dusty bed.

Who narrates Markus Zusak's The Book Thief?

Death. The book thief of the title, Liesel, takes her first book from the cemetery where her little brother is buried.

Which Cassandra Clare series follows Clary Fray into a hidden world of demon-hunting Shadowhunters?

The Mortal Instruments. In City of Bones, Clary watches Shadowhunters kill a demon at a New York club, though nobody else can see them.

Walter Dean Myers's Monster won which prize in 2000, its first year?

The Printz Award. Myers tells Steve Harmon's murder trial partly as a film script, which Steve writes in jail to cope.

Gary Paulsen's Hatchet is a survival novel about a boy stranded where?

The Canadian wilderness. Flying to see his father in Canada, 13-year-old Brian crash-lands in a lake after the bush plane's pilot has a heart attack.

Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War is set where?

A Catholic high school, Trinity. When freshman Jerry refuses to sell chocolates, the secret society the Vigils turns the school against him.

Go Ask Alice, the 1971 'anonymous' teen addict's diary, was later attributed to whom?

Beatrice Sparks, who published it as a real anonymous diary, went on to put out more supposedly true diaries of troubled teens.

Which 1942 novel about a teenage romance is called by some the first young adult novel?

Seventeenth Summer. Maureen Daly finished it at college and entered it in a Dodd, Mead intercollegiate novel contest, which it won.

E. Lockhart's We Were Liars centres on which wealthy family and their private island?

The Sinclairs. Cadence can't remember that she and the other Liars set fire to their grandfather's house to end a family feud, and that it killed her three friends.

Sabaa Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes is set in a fantasy world inspired by which ancient civilisation?

Rome. The Martial Empire's silver-masked elite soldiers train at Blackcliff Academy, where Scholar girl Laia goes undercover as a slave.

Tracy Deonn's Legendborn has been called a modern twist on which body of myth?

Arthurian legend. After her mother dies, Bree infiltrates a secret society at UNC, the Order of the Round Table, made up of descendants of King Arthur's knights.

Which YA novel follows 18-year-old Maddy, who is treated for 'bubble baby disease' and never leaves her house?

Everything, Everything. When the boy next door, Olly, turns up with a Bundt cake, Maddy's overprotective doctor mother sends him away.

Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. follows a sixth-grader raised without what?

Margaret Simon's parents have an interfaith marriage; the 1970 novel has been challenged for its frank talk of puberty and religion.

Madeleine L'Engle's Newbery Medal novel about Meg Murry opens which series?

The Time Quintet. Publisher after publisher rejected A Wrinkle in Time, unsure whether a science fiction story with a girl hero was for children or adults.

At which fictional Pennsylvania boarding school does The Catcher in the Rye begin?

Pencey Prep. Expelled for failing every class but English, Holden leaves early and wanders New York for days rather than go straight home.

In The Hunger Games, which nation on the ruins of North America is ruled from the Capitol?

Panem takes its name from the Latin phrase for bread and circuses: keep the masses fed and entertained and they will not rebel.

In Twilight, what happens to vampire Edward Cullen's skin whenever direct sunlight hits it?

It glitters rather than burns, one of several breaks from vampire lore: Meyer's vampires also have no fangs and can live on animal blood.

In The Lightning Thief, which Greek god claims Percy Jackson as his son at Camp Half-Blood?

Poseidon had sworn an oath with his two brothers never to father more children, so Percy's very birth broke a pact between the eldest gods.

In The Outsiders, which wealthy gang are the sworn rivals of Ponyboy Curtis and the greasers?

The Socs, short for Socials and pronounced SOH-shiz, are the upper-middle-class kids whose feud with the greasers turns deadly in a park.

In The Princess Diaries, Mia Thermopolis learns she is heir to which small European principality?

Genovia's crown falls to Mia because her father, the prince, can no longer have children, which leaves a New York freshman as his only successor.

The title of Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give comes from a THUG LIFE acronym coined by which rapper?

Tupac Shakur wore the acronym as a tattoo across his abdomen and explained it as a warning that hatred fed to children comes back to hurt everyone.

Which Alice Oseman graphic novel series about Nick and Charlie started as a webcomic on Tumblr?

Heartstopper drew such a following online that a Kickstarter campaign paid for its first print edition in 2018.

In The Hunger Games, which weapon has Katniss Everdeen mastered by hunting to feed her family?

A bow and arrow kept her family fed, yet in the arena Katniss only gets one after tracker jacker venom drives off the Careers.

Which book series follows Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen on Manhattan's Upper East Side?

Gossip Girl is narrated by an anonymous blogger who chronicles the scandals of privileged teens at the Constance Billard School for Girls.

In The Fault in Our Stars, which ex-basketball player does Hazel Lancaster meet at a support group?

Augustus Waters lost his right leg to osteosarcoma, and he uses a charity wish to fly Hazel overseas to meet the author she idolizes.

In The Maze Runner, what are the lethal creatures of metal and flesh that roam the Maze called?

Grievers sting their victims into the Changing, an ordeal so revealing that Thomas later lets one sting him on purpose.

In To All the Boys I've Loved Before, which teenager strikes a fake-dating deal with Peter Kavinsky?

Lara Jean Covey and Peter draw up a list of ground rules for their pretend romance, then start falling for each other for real.

Which Francine Pascal series follows identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield in California?

Sweet Valley High ran to 181 books over twenty years, turned out by a team of ghostwriters that Pascal presided over.

Which R. L. Stine horror series follows teenagers in the fictional town of Shadyside?

Fear Street is named after a road in Shadyside that carries the name of the cursed Fear family, and its deaths are far gorier than anything in Goosebumps.

In Thirteen Reasons Why, which classmate of Hannah Baker narrates after a mystery package arrives?

Clay Jensen is the ninth person to receive the package, and each recipient is told to pass it on to the next name on Hannah's list.

In Christopher Paolini's Eragon, which dragon hatches from a stone found on a hunting trip?

Saphira was imagined by Paolini as the perfect friend: loyal, funny, brave, intelligent and noble.

Beth Reekles was 15 when she posted The Kissing Booth chapter by chapter on which story site?

Wattpad named it Most Popular Teen Fiction of 2011, and at 17 Reekles was offered a three-book contract by Random House.

In Lord of the Flies, which object gives its holder the right to speak at assemblies?

A conch shell gives Ralph his authority as chief, and order on the island ends when a boulder kills Piggy and smashes it.

In Anthony Horowitz's Stormbreaker, teenager Alex Rider is recruited as a spy by which agency?

MI6 sends him undercover to a Cornish computer factory, where he uncovers a plot to infect British schoolchildren with smallpox.

In Louis Sachar's Holes, which vegetable keeps Stanley and Zero alive for a week on the mountain?

Onions save the boys twice: the venomous yellow-spotted lizards that later swarm over them will not bite anyone who smells of them.

In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Lena Kaligaris spends her summer on which Greek island?

Santorini is where Lena stays with her grandparents and falls for the neighbors' grandson Kostos, while Bridget is off at soccer camp in Baja California.

In The Book Thief, which girl steals her first book in the graveyard where her brother is buried?

Liesel Meminger goes on to take more, from a bonfire and from the mayor's wife, while living with her foster parents in Nazi Germany.

In The Outsiders, which poet wrote the poem about gold that Ponyboy recites to Johnny at sunrise?

Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay comes to Ponyboy while the two boys are in hiding, and he reads Gone with the Wind to Johnny there too.

In The Giver, which ailing infant does Jonas flee the Community with to save him from release?

Gabriel is failing to thrive at the Nurturing Center, so Jonas's father gets special permission to bring him home at night.

In Lauren Oliver's Delirium, which emotion is a disease that citizens must be cured of at eighteen?

Love is officially amor deliria nervosa, and heroine Lena Haloway catches it only months before her scheduled procedure.

In Victoria Aveyard's Red Queen, the ruling elite with supernatural powers bleed which color?

Silver blood marks the gifted nobility, which is why Mare Barrow, a Red thief with strong abilities of her own, upends the whole order.

In Six of Crows, which criminal mastermind leads the crew that breaks into the Ice Court?

Kaz Brekker takes the job from merchant Jan Van Eck for a hefty price, then recruits a spy, a sharpshooter, a Heartrender and a demolitions expert.

In Pretty Little Liars, four girls are taunted by the anonymous A in which Pennsylvania suburb?

Rosewood is where the four friends' clique collapses after queen bee Alison DiLaurentis vanishes, three years before the messages start.

In His Dark Materials, what is the animal-shaped being that embodies a person's inner self called?

A dæmon almost always stays close to its human, and Lyra Belacqua's, Pantalaimon, is at her side when the story opens in an Oxford college.

Which instrument does Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl play while singing to students on their birthdays?

Ukulele serenades are one quirk of the homeschooled newcomer, who is later shunned by nearly all of Mica High for comforting a rival player.

In Gayle Forman's If I Stay, Mia Hall has auditioned for Juilliard on which instrument?

Cello music is what reaches Mia in her coma: boyfriend Adam slips headphones over her ears and plays a Yo-Yo Ma recording, and she chooses to stay.

In Five Feet Apart, which illness do teenage hospital patients Stella and Will have in common?

Cystic fibrosis patients are told to stay six feet from each other to avoid cross-infection, so Stella carries a five-foot pool cue to take one foot back.

Which novelist wrote and directed the film of his own book The Perks of Being a Wallflower?

Stephen Chbosky adapted his 1999 coming-of-age novel himself, then went on to direct the films of Wonder and Dear Evan Hansen.

Which author of I Know What You Did Last Summer was appalled when it became a slasher film?

Lois Duncan wrote it as a 1973 suspense novel, and after her own daughter was murdered she turned away from thrillers to write for young children.

Which Greek hero's myth, in which Athens sends its young to die in Crete, shaped The Hunger Games?

Theseus was the model for Katniss, whom the author called a futuristic version of the hero, while gladiator games supplied the framework.

Jason Reynolds's verse novel Long Way Down unfolds during a single ride in what?

An elevator takes Will down from the eighth floor in about a minute, and at each floor someone who is dead steps in with a story to tell.

In Tamora Pierce's Alanna: The First Adventure, Alanna of Trebond poses as a boy to train as what?

A knight is the last thing her twin Thom wants to be, so the two swap places: she takes his spot at the palace as Alan while he studies sorcery.

In Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me, what about asylum inmate Juliette Ferrars is lethal to other people?

Her touch killed a small boy by accident when she was 14, and the regime that locked her up now wants to use it as a weapon.

In Paper Towns, which neighbor goes missing days after a night of vengeance with Quentin Jacobsen?

Margo Roth Spiegelman leaves clues behind, including a highlighted Walt Whitman poem, that send Quentin and his friends on a search for her.

In Jenny Han's The Summer I Turned Pretty, Belly Conklin spends her summers in which seaside town?

Cousins Beach is where Belly's family shares a house with the Fisher brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah, both of whom fall for her.

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass was first published in Britain under which title?

Northern Lights was renamed because the American publisher took an early working title to mean Lyra's truth-telling alethiometer and insisted on keeping it.

In the Twilight saga, Jacob Black belongs to which real Native American tribe based at La Push?

Quileute legends are how Bella first learns what Edward is, yet the real tribe received no compensation for the use of its name and culture.

Which classic novel inspired Stephenie Meyer's Eclipse, then topped a classics chart thanks to her?

Wuthering Heights shaped the central triangle, with Edward and Jacob compared to Heathcliff and Edgar Linton, though Meyer says she does not like the book.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is set in which Texas border city?

El Paso in 1987 is home to Ari Mendoza and Dante Quintana, and the audiobook of their story is read by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The first storyline of Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese retells which figure's story?

The Monkey King, hero of the classic novel Journey to the West, is unhappy being a monkey, a struggle mirrored by schoolboy Jin Wang's wish to fit in.

L. J. Smith's Vampire Diaries novels follow Elena Gilbert and Stefan Salvatore in which town?

Fell's Church was dropped for television, where the series moved the same romance to the fictional Mystic Falls, Virginia.

Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone follows art student Karou in which European capital?

Prague is where Karou studies art between errands for the chimaera who raised her, fetching the teeth they demand in exchange for wishes.

In Neal Shusterman's Scythe, which benevolent artificial intelligence governs a united Earth?

Thunderhead refuses to take human lives itself, which is why an order of scythes is deputized to cull a quota of people every year.

In James Patterson's Maximum Ride, lab experiments left Max and her makeshift family with what?

Wings mark Max and the Flock as human-avian hybrids, created at a lab called the School and hunted by its half-wolf Erasers.

In The Hunger Games trilogy, which hybrid bird becomes the symbol of the rebellion Katniss leads?

Mockingjay birds are a cross between mockingbirds and genetically engineered jabberjays, and one in gold appears on the first novel's cover.