40 Fun Facts About Missing May

In Missing May, what was Aunt May doing outside when she died suddenly, six years after taking Summer in?

Gardening was May's own word for it, though her plot held pole beans and cabbage rather than roses. Summer feels that dying there is the only part of the loss that makes sense.

In Missing May, what does Uncle Ob, a veteran with a bad leg, enjoy crafting by the dozen?

Whirligigs are objects with parts that spin in the wind, and Ob has carved dozens of them over the years.

The novel Missing May is set in a mountain home in which state, where its author also grew up?

West Virginia is home to Summer, Ob and May, and the author was raised in its southern hills too. She has called growing up there the wellspring of her writing.

In Missing May, what kind of rickety home do May and Ob bring six-year-old Summer back to?

A trailer with peeling aluminum and sinking steps, set on the face of a mountain, becomes the first real home Summer has ever known.

In Missing May, what kind of person do Ob, Summer and Cletus drive off to consult about May?

A medium, a woman said to commune with the dead, is Ob's best hope of hearing what May wants to tell him. Cletus found her in a news story.

In Missing May, what do Ob, Summer and Cletus learn about the Reverend they drove to another county to see?

She has died, so nobody is left to pass on May's message. Ob is crushed, and Summer fears the disappointment is the last blow to his will to live.

In Missing May, what does Cletus claim to have had as a child that gives Ob hope of reaching May?

A near-death experience at age seven, around the time his grandfather passed away, left Cletus certain there is an afterlife, which is exactly what Ob longs to hear.

Which American author, who has written more than 100 children's books, wrote the novel Missing May?

Cynthia Rylant later said the picture book that launched her career took her about an hour to write. Her novels, poems and early readers followed.

Which top American prize for children's literature did Missing May win the year after it was published?

The Newbery Medal went to Missing May in 1993, six years after the same author had been a runner-up for it with a novel about a boy and a preacher.

In Missing May, where does Ob suddenly turn the car around to take Summer and Cletus on the drive home?

The state capitol had been promised to the two young people as a side trip. Ob's turn back toward it is the moment he decides to go on living.

In Missing May, after potato chip bags, buttons and wrapping paper, what does Cletus now collect?

Cut-out pictures from newspapers and magazines are his latest passion, and he makes up stories about the people in them.

In Missing May, what does Cletus carry his prized collection around in when he comes to visit Ob?

A suitcase goes wherever Cletus and his collection go, and he makes up stories about what is inside. On his first visit he kept Ob listening for seven straight hours.

In Missing May, which creatures did May pity and help catch in a blanket whenever one flew into the home?

Bats got a kind word from May, and she and Ob took turns throwing a blanket over each one to carry it outside. She once nursed an injured one in a shoebox lined with warm towels.

In Missing May, what is the surname of Cletus, viewed as the strangest student at Summer's school?

Underwood is the family name of the boy who meets Ob by chance shortly after May's death and quickly becomes his friend, to Summer's annoyance.

In Missing May, Uncle Ob's game leg is a reminder of his service in which war?

World War II left Ob with the game leg, which also dates the couple: he and May are already elderly when they take Summer in.

In Missing May, Summer is intrigued when Cletus offhandedly describes her as which kind of person?

A writer is how Cletus sees her. Summer does not much value his company at first, but the label and his grown-up vocabulary catch her interest.

In Missing May, which word does Cletus use for his favorite antique photo of a seemingly floating baby?

Surreal is his word because the christening gown is so long it nearly covers the chair, so the baby appears to hover in the air.

In Missing May, where does the heartbroken Ob sit through the night when May dies?

In his old Chevy, a broken-down wreck he had held onto for years, Ob sat out the night while twelve-year-old Summer was left to worry about him.

Missing May is divided into two parts: Still as Night comes first, so what is the second called?

Set Free covers the road trip and what follows it, and the title pays off in the closing scene, when Ob's carvings are finally carried outdoors.

In Missing May, what fills the shelves that amaze hungry six-year-old Summer when she first arrives?

Junk food on every shelf told a girl who had always been hungry that she was welcome. She remembers it alongside the open arms May and Ob greeted her with.

Before May and Ob take her in, who had been raising the orphaned Summer in Missing May?

A series of relatives passed her along after her mother died. None of them mistreated her, but May and Ob noticed that she was virtually ignored.

In Missing May, what does Summer fear the constantly visiting Cletus will end up doing?

Stealing Ob away from her is the fear behind her rudeness, though she never admits it to herself. Cletus keeps coming back anyway, and keeps comforting Ob.

In Missing May, where do Ob, Summer and Cletus drive to in search of the Reverend?

Putnam County is the home of the pastor in the news story Cletus brings over. Summer is dumbfounded, because she is sure Ob would never step foot in a church.

In Missing May, what is the name of the mountain community where May, Ob and Summer live?

Deep Water is where the story starts and ends, and a silence falls over the car as Ob drives away from it at the start of the road trip.

In Missing May, which old car, the only one Ob owns that still runs, carries the three on their trip?

A Valiant is also the car Ob drove on the day he first brought Summer home, so both of the story's big journeys happen in it.

In Missing May, who answers the door at the Reverend's house and gives the travelers the bad news?

Her nephew stiffens when Ob begs him for help, saying he has no spiritual powers of his own. It is clear he would like the visitors to leave.

In Missing May, which illness of Summer's kept May awake at her side for 32 hours straight?

Chicken pox kept May up for well over a day, a story Summer expects Ob to tell when he recalls what a good mother his wife was.

In Missing May, what does Ob do for the first time on the morning after waiting in vain for May's spirit?

He stays in bed, shaking and gray, and tells Summer he must have slept late, though both know he never has. She spares his pride and goes to make coffee.

Which beginning-reader series about a boy and his enormous drooling dog did Missing May's author create?

Henry and Mudge began in 1987 with an only child and a puppy that grows huge, and dozens more books about the pair followed.

Which earlier novel by Missing May's author follows a boy who becomes the disciple of a charismatic preacher?

A Fine White Dust ends with the preacher running off with a young woman, yet the boy comes away with his faith strengthened. It was an Honor Book in 1987.

The author of Missing May publishes under a surname that was borrowed from which source?

Her mother's maiden name supplies the pen name. She was born a Smith, to an Army veteran father she never saw again after her parents separated.

In which job did the author of Missing May finally become acquainted with children's books as an adult?

Librarian was her second job after college, following a spell as a waitress. As a child she had never seen children's books and read mainly comics.

Much like Summer in Missing May, the book's author spent four childhood years being raised by whom?

Her grandparents took her in from age four to eight while her mother was away at nursing school, in a home with no electricity or running water.

Besides its famous medal, which other children's fiction honor did Missing May win in the year it came out?

The Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for fiction came first, in 1992. The same author had been recognized in its nonfiction category the year before.

In Missing May, Summer imagines her mountainside home began as a toy that slipped from whose hands?

God's toy, in her telling, fell from heaven by accident and landed on the face of the mountain, which is how precariously the place is perched.

In Missing May, where had a neighbor kept the old magazines he hands over to Cletus before the trip?

In his outhouse, where they had been the reading material until he emptied it out. Cletus chatters about the haul as the car sets off.

In Missing May, why does Cletus keep calling on old Mrs. Davis, who gave him his antique photo?

She never gets visitors, so Cletus feels bad for her. Summer is merely annoyed that he is bothering yet another of the neighbors.

In Missing May, what is Cletus soon sipping indoors after Ob goes outside to confront him?

Hot cocoa took the place of the scolding Summer expected. She had warned Ob to stay away from the boy, yet he was a guest in the house before she knew it.

In Missing May, which ointment did May rub into Ob's sore knees, a memory he shares with Cletus?

Ben-Gay rubdowns are the kind of small kindness Ob chooses to recall, rather than the grander gestures Summer expects to hear about.

Which organization awards the top children's book medal that Missing May received the year after publication?

The American Library Association gives the medal through its division for library service to children, and the prize dates back to 1922.