By the Shores of Silver Lake
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40 free By the Shores of Silver Lake trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
By the Shores of Silver Lake is the book where the Little House series grows up. Laura is twelve, Mary has lost her sight, and the family leaves Minnesota for good to follow the railroad into Dakota Territory. Laura Ingalls Wilder turns a hard year into one of her warmest stories: a rough construction camp, a snug borrowed house on an empty prairie, and a brand-new settlement rising out of the grass. This quiz follows the story from the opening chapters on Plum Creek to the homestead at the end. It covers the family and the relatives, friends and strangers they meet along the way, the scenes readers remember best, and the real people, places and history behind the novel, along with its author, illustrators and honours. It is written for students getting ready for an Accelerated Reader (AR) quiz, a chapter test or a book report, for teachers and homeschoolers who want a ready-made review, and for anyone who grew up with the Little House books. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A 2013 medical study doubted which illness that By the Shores of Silver Lake blames for Mary Ingalls's blindness?
Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is the cause the book gives, but researchers who combed first-hand accounts and newspaper reports concluded that a viral infection of the brain was the more likely culprit.
Q 02In By the Shores of Silver Lake, which animal do Laura and Carrie meet while out on the moonlit ice?
A wolf
A wolf is what the sisters encounter on their moonlight walk. When Pa goes out to hunt it the next day, he finds the perfect piece of land for the family's claim instead.
Q 03Which old family bulldog dies in his sleep on the morning Pa leaves Plum Creek in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
Jack
Jack dies in the story, but the real bulldog was no longer with the Ingallses by then. Wilder placed his death here to mark Laura's passage out of childhood.
Q 04In By the Shores of Silver Lake, Ma and the girls go west to Pa by which means, new to them all?
By train
By train: none of them has ridden one before, and they are thrilled that it covers in a few hours the distance a horse and wagon would manage in a day.
Q 05In By the Shores of Silver Lake, what work does Laura resolve to take up to help send Mary to college?
Teaching school
Teaching school is what Laura decides on once she hears about the college. Helping to pay Mary's way was one of the reasons the real Laura became a teacher.
Q 06Which Little House book, with the family sheltering in Pa's town store, directly follows By the Shores of Silver Lake?
The Long Winter
The Long Winter follows the family through seven months of blizzards, after an early October storm drives them off the claim and into town.
Q 07Which American book award named By the Shores of Silver Lake one of its Honor titles?
Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal committee gave Honor status to five Wilder books in a row, the fourth to the eighth in the series, and this one was the second of them.
Q 08A visiting minister in By the Shores of Silver Lake tells Ma of a college for the blind in which state?
Iowa
Iowa is where the minister says blind students can get a college education, and the family sets its heart on it. The real Mary enrolled in 1881 and completed the seven-year course.
Q 09By the Shores of Silver Lake opens on Plum Creek, just outside which Minnesota town made famous by television?
Walnut Grove
Walnut Grove was home to just 153 people in the 1880 census. The television series set there turned the tiny prairie town into a household name nearly a century later.
Q 10After Mary loses her sight in By the Shores of Silver Lake, what daily task does Pa hand to Laura?
Describing what she sees
Describing what she sees becomes Laura's job for the rest of the book, from prairie sunrises to passing strangers, and the task leaves her more patient and mature.
Q 11The free-land law Pa counts on in By the Shores of Silver Lake was signed in 1862 by which president?
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act once the Southern states had left Congress. It let a settler claim public land for a small fee by living on it for five years.
Q 12Where is the Ingalls family living, after several moves, when By the Shores of Silver Lake ends?
In a shanty on the claim
In a shanty on the claim is where the story leaves them. Wilder called it a half house because its roof slanted all one way, and a replica now stands where the original did.
Q 13Which young settler, the hero of Farmer Boy, makes a brief appearance late in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
Q 21Which rider in By the Shores of Silver Lake, part French and part Indian, leads an angry crowd away from Pa's store?
Big Jerry
Big Jerry was the brother-in-law of the grading foreman. Wilder left few other clues, and his identity stayed a puzzle until descendants of the foreman's family confirmed who he was.
Q 22Which newlywed couple reaches the surveyors' house in a snowstorm in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
The Boasts
The Boasts stay on past Christmas and become firm friends of the family. The real Robert and Ella had in fact been husband and wife for ten years before they moved west.
Q 23Which first for the future town does Reverend Alden lead at the surveyors' house in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
A church service
Almanzo Wilder
Almanzo Wilder turns up only briefly, in the chapter called Moving Day. He had filed on his own land in 1879, a year before Pa did.
Q 14Which illustrator of Charlotte's Web drew the pictures for the 1950s edition of By the Shores of Silver Lake?
Garth Williams
Garth Williams had never been west of the Hudson River when he took the job, so he toured the places the Ingalls family had lived, sketching and photographing as he went.
Q 15Which treasured ornament of Ma's stays packed away at the railroad camp in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
China shepherdess
The china shepherdess is never displayed in temporary quarters. Unpacking and admiring it is a small ceremony that Ma saves for the day the family is properly settled.
Q 16What was the real first name of Pa, the father who files a land claim in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
Charles
Charles Ingalls was a hunter, trapper, carpenter and farmer who loved music and played the violin. He filed the real claim behind the story in February 1880.
Q 17Which aunt arrives at Plum Creek in By the Shores of Silver Lake with a railroad job offer for Pa?
Docia
Aunt Docia is Pa's sister, first met at the dance at Grandpa's in Little House in the Big Woods. Her husband, Uncle Hi, is a contractor building the new railroad west.
Q 18What position does Pa hold at the railroad camps in By the Shores of Silver Lake before he files a claim?
Bookkeeper and timekeeper
Bookkeeper and timekeeper, and storekeeper too: Pa records the men's hours and hands out their wages for fifty dollars a month, steady cash after two poor wheat crops.
Q 19At which Minnesota town does Pa meet Ma and the girls with the wagon in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
Tracy
Tracy lay seven miles beyond the family's old home and counted 322 people in the 1880 census. From there the Ingallses went on by wagon in September 1879.
Q 20Which cousin lets Laura ride a horse for the first time, on her own pony, in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
Lena
Lena is a year older than Laura in the book, though the real cousin was born only three months before her. The two play once their chores are done, from milking cows to collecting laundry washed by a neighbour.
A church service was held there in February 1880, with twenty-five people present. Reverend Alden was passing through on his way west to organise a church in the next county.
Q 24In which town is the land office where Pa files the family's claim in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
Brookings
Brookings, spelled Brookins in the book, lay to the east. Pa waits for its land office to open, which saves him more than a week's travel to Yankton and back.
Q 25How do the Ingallses earn money for Mary's college during the spring rush in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
Boarding travellers
Boarding travellers turns the surveyors' house into an inn: men heading west to find land have nowhere else to sleep, and what they pay is later put toward Mary's education.
Q 26In By the Shores of Silver Lake, which Kansas friend starts a fight so Pa can file first at the land office?
Mr. Edwards
Mr. Edwards first met the family near Independence in an earlier book. He turns up again in the next one and generously gives Mary a twenty-dollar bill.
Q 27Which fashionable piece of parlor furniture does Pa build at the surveyors' house in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
A whatnot
A whatnot is a stand of shelves for books and ornaments. A neighbour tells Pa how to build one, although furniture dealers had been advertising them for at least a decade.
Q 28What news of a homesteader's thirteen-year-old daughter reaches Laura and her cousin in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
She has just married
She has just married, her mother explains, and is no longer at home to help with the work. On the way back the two cousins decide they are not ready to grow up quite yet.
Q 29In By the Shores of Silver Lake, the down of which bird shot by Pa trims little Grace's Christmas coat?
A swan
A swan's downy skin becomes the hood, cuffs and collar of the coat. A local paper later reported Pa shooting one on the lake that measured six feet eight inches from tip to tip.
Q 30Which trees does Pa plant right around the family's new home late in By the Shores of Silver Lake?
Cottonwoods
Cottonwoods that had seeded around a lone tree on the prairie are what Pa brings home. Five still standing on the old land are said to be the ones he planted for Ma and the girls.