40 Fun Facts About A Girl Named Disaster

In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo sets off alone by boat to find her father's family in which country?

Zimbabwe lies just across the border, but land mines and patrols guard the crossing, and Nhamo has never been in a boat before she sets out.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which animal killed Nhamo's mother when Nhamo was only three years old?

A leopard killed her mother, and Nhamo is later shocked to learn that the same animal is the totem of her father's family.

In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo spends months on an island living alongside a troop of which animals?

Baboons come to accept Nhamo so completely that a baby she names Tag grooms her, a touch that makes her burst into tears.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which disease sweeps through Nhamo's village and kills her aunt Shuvai?

Cholera kills so many that Nhamo's family travels to a trading post to learn what caused the outbreak, and the answer puts her in danger.

In A Girl Named Disaster, what fate is Nhamo fleeing when she leaves her village on her grandmother's advice?

An arranged marriage to the brutal brother of a man her father killed is meant to quiet the dead man's angry spirit.

In A Girl Named Disaster, what hidden treasure does Nhamo's grandmother give her before she runs away?

Gold nuggets from her grandmother turn out to be worth enough to support Nhamo for a long time, so friends urge her to bank them in her own name.

In A Girl Named Disaster, the scientists who shelter Nhamo run a remote station that studies which insects?

Tsetse flies were Nancy Farmer's own field: in the 1970s she worked in southern Africa studying biological ways to control them.

In A Girl Named Disaster, what treasured object does Nhamo talk to as though it were her dead mother?

A magazine picture of a woman slicing bread for her daughter becomes Mother to Nhamo, who shares pretend tea parties with it.

In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo's boat trip should take about two days; roughly how long does it last?

A year passes before the journey ends, much of it spent stranded on islands in a vast lake where she nearly starves.

In A Girl Named Disaster, the name Nhamo is the word for disaster in which African language?

Shona is the language of Nhamo's people, and its names carry meaning: her favoured cousin's means thank you.

A Girl Named Disaster was named an Honor Book for which American children's literature prize?

Newbery Medal judges named it an Honor Book in 1997, the year it also made the American Library Association's top ten books for young adults.

A Girl Named Disaster was a finalist for which American prize in its Young People's Literature category?

National Book Award judges shortlisted the novel in 1996, and Nancy Farmer went on to win the same category in 2002 with a science fiction story.

In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo escapes in a boat that had belonged to which man, whose spirit later advises her?

Crocodile Guts was the village fisherman, and his spirit visits Nhamo to praise his boat and remind her how he used to plug its leaks.

In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo's boat drifts off course into which body of water, stranding her for months?

Lake Cabora Bassa was made when the Portuguese dammed the Zambezi, which is why Nhamo finds abandoned gardens still growing on one of its islands.

In A Girl Named Disaster, what does Nhamo call the outcast that the island troop constantly bullies?

Rumpy, who has lost half his tail, is picked on by the rest of the troop, tries to bully Nhamo in turn and is later killed.

In A Girl Named Disaster, what are the njuzu that Nhamo first meets in a dream as two beautiful girls?

Water spirits called njuzu also appear as snakes, and when Nhamo gives up eating and drinking they force a drink into her.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which child-eating witch from a village story haunts Nhamo's dreams on the islands?

Long Teats, who in the tale gives birth to locusts, goes on speaking to Nhamo until an exorcism on a mountain drives her out.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which creature's sting makes Nhamo hallucinate and vomit while she works on a boat?

A scorpion sting brings on a fevered dream in which a betrayed princess sends her cattle, her people and finally herself over a cliff.

In A Girl Named Disaster, what is the name of the science station that becomes Nhamo's true home?

Efifi's staff treat Nhamo as a kind of adopted niece and granddaughter, and she goes back there to work during her school holidays.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which member of the science station staff does Nhamo come to call Mother?

Dr. Masuku treats her in hospital, and Nhamo is hurt when she overhears the doctor say she must soon be sent away to a city school.

In A Girl Named Disaster, Baba Joseph's Vapostori faith sets aside which day of the week as holy?

Saturday is his holy day, so the old man is glad to have Nhamo around to tend his animals while he rests.

In A Girl Named Disaster, what is the job of Sister Gladys, who takes Nhamo to meet her father's family?

A nurse who looks after Nhamo at the hospital, Sister Gladys fumes when the girl's aunt greets her long-lost niece with indifference.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which trader's wife offers to raise Nhamo as her own daughter?

Rosa and her husband think the muvuki is a fraud, but neither bribes nor arguments can persuade Nhamo's uncle to leave the girl with them.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which sweet-tempered cousin is one of the few villagers who is kind to Nhamo?

Masvita survives the epidemic, and a letter at the end of the story reports that she is now a mother of two.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which bad-tempered aunt makes Nhamo do most of the hard work in the village?

Chipo has resented Nhamo's mother since they were girls, and she later fakes a spirit possession to turn the family against her niece.

In A Girl Named Disaster, what kind of specialist is the muvuki whom Nhamo's family consults at the trading post?

A witch finder, the muvuki throws divining sticks called hakata, then blames the deaths on the spirit of a man Nhamo's father killed.

In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo's wealthy grandfather on her father's side made his fortune from which mineral?

Chrome paid for a mansion with a doorbell and servants, a world away from the village where Nhamo pounded grain and hauled water.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which relative, a traditional healer, takes Nhamo to see her father's grave?

Her great-grandfather tells Nhamo how her disowned father dug tunnels under that very mountain until they collapsed with him inside.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which river animals frighten Nhamo ashore, though she later misses their company?

Hippos keep her camped on the bank for days, long enough to trap fish, get used to the water and grow strong.

In A Girl Named Disaster, which skill does Nhamo use to calm her fears and pass lonely hours on the journey?

Telling stories is Nhamo's gift, and the folktales she recites, about jealous co-wives, picky parents and unlucky twins, are woven through the plot.

In A Girl Named Disaster, what chases Nhamo from a white family's garden on her first night across the border?

A pack of dogs is set on her by the householder, and the memory later makes her lash out when a scientist's pet bounds toward her.

In A Girl Named Disaster, what useful find does Nhamo carry away from an abandoned hut that holds a skeleton?

A large knife is her prize, and in return she promises the dead owner's spirit gardenia branches to keep witches from the open door.

In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo builds her sleeping platform among which trees because animals leave them alone?

Lucky-beans are poisonous, which animals seem to know, and a platform in their branches beats the cold, damp floor of a cave.

In A Girl Named Disaster, a spirit's gesture gives Nhamo the idea of hollowing out a new boat with what?

Hot coals would burn out the log, but in the end Nhamo gives up on the new boat and patches the old one with tree sap.

In A Girl Named Disaster, where did Nhamo's mother, Runako, meet the man she wed without her parents' consent?

At a Catholic school far from the village, Runako met the boy she then wed in a church, a subject her family treated as taboo for years.

In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo's chores include pounding mealies, a southern African word for which crop?

Maize reached Africa from the Americas with the Portuguese, and Nhamo later dreads going back to the drudgery of pounding it.

Nancy Farmer, who wrote A Girl Named Disaster, joined which American volunteer programme before working in Africa?

Peace Corps service took her to India in the 1960s; years as a scientist in Africa followed before she began writing at about 40.

Which Nancy Farmer novel, set in the year 2194, shares its African setting with A Girl Named Disaster?

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm follows three kidnapped children and the mutant detectives hired to find them; one refuge is a village much like Nhamo's.

In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo plans to follow which river upstream to the border before she drifts off course?

Musengezi was the route her grandmother described, but the boat, tied only to wispy reeds, broke loose while Nhamo slept.

In A Girl Named Disaster, where does Nhamo find clay to patch her boat after it rams into rocks?

A termite hill supplies the clay; Nhamo had just hit the rocks after shouting at an island for not being the mainland she wanted.