40 Fun Facts About All of the Above

In which Ohio city do the four students of Shelley Pearsall's All of the Above attend middle school?

Cleveland is both the novel's setting and the home of the real school whose students inspired it. The author grew up in one of the city's suburbs.

In All of the Above, what kind of business does Marcel's father, Willy Q, run in the neighborhood?

A barbecue joint named Willy Q's is a neighborhood landmark in the story. At one school that read the novel together, the cafeteria staff wore Willy Q's shirts.

What does Mr. Collins offer James Harris III for joining the math club in All of the Above?

A passing grade in math is the deal, because James is failing the class. He turns up planning to sit in the room and do nothing at all.

Which pattern do the colored pieces of the finished tetrahedron follow in All of the Above?

A rainbow pattern is James's idea, and it gives the angriest boy in the club a real stake in the project. The real school's pyramids glowed in the same bright colors.

In All of the Above, James Harris III and his friends bet on which item Mr. Collins will wear to class?

His tie is the only thing about math class that keeps James and his friends awake. The bets show how little the lessons reach the room when the story opens.

In All of the Above, Mr. Collins hopes the giant tetrahedron will earn his students a place in which publication?

Guinness World Records is the target Mr. Collins sets, by building a tetrahedron bigger than any school has managed. Rhondell hopes a listing will help her future.

With whom is Sharice living during the school year covered by Shelley Pearsall's All of the Above?

A foster parent, the fifth Sharice has had, is rarely home in the evenings. The after-school club becomes the closest thing she has to a family.

Which talent does school-hating James Harris III quietly excel at in All of the Above?

Drawing is the one thing James cares about, and his sketches appear as the book's illustrations. School, he insists, has nothing to teach him.

Which task does Sharice forget on the night the unfinished tetrahedron is wrecked in All of the Above?

Locking the door slips Sharice's mind after she stays late working alone, and intruders smash the club's work. The crushed team almost refuses to start over.

In All of the Above, what does quiet Rhondell dream of that no one in her family has done?

Going to college is Rhondell's secret hope, and she thinks a world record might help her get there. Her mother warns that it will take brains or luck.

In All of the Above, what do Mr. Collins's bored students say would make them care about class?

A contest is the lukewarm answer he gets, so the twenty-year veteran starts an after-school club to chase a world record. He had just lost his temper with a class that would not listen.

Which grade are James, Marcel, Sharice and Rhondell in when they join the club in All of the Above?

Seventh grade is where Mr. Collins teaches math, to a class he is struggling to reach. The real students who inspired the story were middle schoolers too.

Which simple supplies do the students in All of the Above use to build each small tetrahedron?

Paper and glue are all it takes: the students fold and stick small pyramids by the hundred, then join them into ever bigger ones.

Each face of a tetrahedron, the shape at the heart of All of the Above, is which figure?

A triangle forms every face, and a tetrahedron has only four of them, making it the simplest solid with flat sides. Any one of the faces can serve as the base.

Why does Marcel's father try to cut short his son's club time in All of the Above?

He needs help at work, and he believes Marcel's first duty is to the family business. After the break-in, though, he is the one urging his son not to quit.

The record chased in All of the Above was set by a wealthy school in which US state?

California was home to the school whose Stage 6 tetrahedron held the record. Mr. Collins's class aims one stage higher, which means four times as many pieces.

Which holiday party does list-making Sharice organize for the after-school club in All of the Above?

Christmas gets a club party because Sharice plans it, just as she keeps the lists that hold the project together. All the while she hides how bad things are at home.

Willy Q, Marcel's father in All of the Above, is a veteran of the war in which country?

Vietnam is where Willy Q once served as a soldier. Marcel wants neither the army nor the family business for himself.

Besides acting, which career does smooth-talking Marcel hope for in Shelley Pearsall's All of the Above?

A comedian or an actor is what Marcel plans to be, and he has the charm for it. The book introduces him as Marcel the Magnificent.

Which relative shares an apartment with James Harris III and his older brother DJ in All of the Above?

His uncle gives James a home, but it is domineering DJ and his rough friends who fill the apartment.

Which club office does reluctant James Harris III take over when Marcel must leave early in All of the Above?

President, or Prez for short, is the job that changes James: once he is in charge, he starts to care. Rhondell is the one who notices the difference in him.

What does James Harris III take from his brother DJ as a bargaining chip in All of the Above?

A basketball jersey that DJ treasures becomes James's hostage: he will return it only if DJ's friends leave the tetrahedron alone. James is sure they were the vandals.

In which weather is Sharice discovered stranded outside her own house in All of the Above?

A blizzard is raging when friends find Sharice shut out of the house with nobody home. Her private troubles are a secret no longer.

After Sharice is found shut out in the cold in All of the Above, which adult applies to take her in?

Aunt Asia applies to become Sharice's new guardian after she and Rhondell bring the girl home. Until then Sharice had kept her neglect to herself.

Why does James Harris III miss the day the tetrahedron is finally completed in All of the Above?

He moves away when the family relocates, just before the last pieces go on. The boy who once refused to lift a finger leaves the others a plea to carry on.

After the tetrahedron is finished in All of the Above, where is James Harris III proud to see his name?

In the newspaper is where James finds his name, after reporters turn up to cover the club's celebration.

Shelley Pearsall called writing All of the Above a stretch because of which storytelling choice?

Multiple narrators tell the story in turn: the four students, their teacher and people from the neighborhood. Each voice had to move the plot forward while sounding like nobody else.

What does All of the Above print between its chapters, thanks to Marcel's job at Willy Q's?

Recipes for sauce, cornbread and chocolate cake separate the chapters. The author and her husband had to test them all, and tried the sauce even on cucumber slices and broccoli.

Where did Sharice pass her lonely evenings before she joined the club in All of the Above?

The local library, or a seat on a city bus, was where Sharice waited until someone came home to let her in. The club gave her somewhere better to be.

Besides Willy Q, which group of adults helps rebuild the wrecked tetrahedron in All of the Above?

Hairstylists from the salon where Rhondell's aunt works pitch in after the break-in. By then the project belongs to the whole neighborhood.

What name does Shelley Pearsall give the crumbling middle school where Mr. Collins teaches in All of the Above?

Washington Middle School is old and crumbling, in a neighborhood many have given up on. The real school behind the story carries a different famous name.

How many small pieces make up the finished Stage 7 tetrahedron in Shelley Pearsall's All of the Above?

16,384 pieces are needed because each stage is built from four of the stage before, joined at the corners. The old record was a quarter of the size.

The real Ohio school whose students inspired All of the Above is named after which Founding Father?

Hamilton, as in Alexander Hamilton Middle School, is where a group of students spent a year of afternoons chasing the real record.

Which artist, later a Caldecott Medal winner, illustrated Shelley Pearsall's novel All of the Above?

Javaka Steptoe made the art for the novel years before his own big prize. He won the 2017 Caldecott Medal for Radiant Child, about the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Before it became a novel, Shelley Pearsall first wrote the story of All of the Above in which form?

A picture book called The Great Tetrahedron went round publishers and found no takers. An editor who loved its characters helped turn it into a novel.

Trouble Don't Last, the first novel by the author of All of the Above, won which prize for historical fiction?

The Scott O'Dell Award went to Trouble Don't Last, the story of a boy and an old man escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad.

Who first showed Shelley Pearsall the giant pyramids that inspired All of the Above?

The school's principal kept talking about a record-breaking project during her visit as a new author, then opened a classroom door on giant colored pyramids. She did not yet know what a tetrahedron was.

Sierpinski tetrahedrons, like the one in All of the Above, are named for a mathematician from which country?

Poland was home to Wacław Sierpiński, who described his famous pattern of shapes within shapes in 1915. The students' version repeats that pattern in three dimensions.

In All of the Above, what does Marcel do as he sets the last pyramid on the finished tetrahedron?

Marcel dedicates it to James, whose stubbornness got the club rebuilding after the break-in. Reporters are on hand to record the moment.

Which farewell does James Harris III leave for Mr. Collins and the club in All of the Above?

A note from James urges the others to see the tetrahedron through, though he will not be there when the last piece goes on.