A Girl Named Disaster
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40 free A Girl Named Disaster trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Nancy Farmer's A Girl Named Disaster is a survival story with a difference. Its heroine, Nhamo, is a village girl who has never been in a boat when she pushes off alone into the current, and the ghosts and ancestors she meets on the way are as real to her as the crocodiles. This quiz follows the whole journey: the family quarrels and the ruling that drive Nhamo from home, the struggle to feed herself in the wild, the strangers who take her in, and the relatives waiting at the end of the road. A few questions step outside the story to the author and the honours the novel collected. It is written for readers who have finished the novel, whether for a class, a reading group or their own pleasure. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so it works as a revision aid as well as a test.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo sets off alone by boat to find her father's family in which country?
Zimbabwe
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.
Q 02In A Girl Named Disaster, which animal killed Nhamo's mother when Nhamo was only three years old?
A leopard
A leopard killed her mother, and Nhamo is later shocked to learn that the same animal is the totem of her father's family.
Q 03In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo spends months on an island living alongside a troop of which animals?
Baboons
Baboons come to accept Nhamo so completely that a baby she names Tag grooms her, a touch that makes her burst into tears.
Q 04In A Girl Named Disaster, which disease sweeps through Nhamo's village and kills her aunt Shuvai?
Cholera
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.
Q 05In A Girl Named Disaster, what fate is Nhamo fleeing when she leaves her village on her grandmother's advice?
An arranged marriage
An arranged marriage to the brutal brother of a man her father killed is meant to quiet the dead man's angry spirit.
Q 06In A Girl Named Disaster, what hidden treasure does Nhamo's grandmother give her before she runs away?
Gold nuggets
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.
Q 07In A Girl Named Disaster, the scientists who shelter Nhamo run a remote station that studies which insects?
Tsetse flies
Tsetse flies were Nancy Farmer's own field: in the 1970s she worked in southern Africa studying biological ways to control them.
Q 08In A Girl Named Disaster, what treasured object does Nhamo talk to as though it were her dead mother?
A magazine picture
A magazine picture of a woman slicing bread for her daughter becomes Mother to Nhamo, who shares pretend tea parties with it.
Q 09In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo's boat trip should take about two days; roughly how long does it last?
A year
A year passes before the journey ends, much of it spent stranded on islands in a vast lake where she nearly starves.
Q 10In A Girl Named Disaster, the name Nhamo is the word for disaster in which African language?
Shona
Shona is the language of Nhamo's people, and its names carry meaning: her favoured cousin's means thank you.
Q 11A Girl Named Disaster was named an Honor Book for which American children's literature prize?
Newbery Medal
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.
Q 12A Girl Named Disaster was a finalist for which American prize in its Young People's Literature category?
National Book Award
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.
Q 13In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo escapes in a boat that had belonged to which man, whose spirit later advises her?
Crocodile Guts
Q 21In A Girl Named Disaster, Baba Joseph's Vapostori faith sets aside which day of the week as holy?
Saturday
Saturday is his holy day, so the old man is glad to have Nhamo around to tend his animals while he rests.
Q 22In A Girl Named Disaster, what is the job of Sister Gladys, who takes Nhamo to meet her father's family?
A nurse
A nurse who looks after Nhamo at the hospital, Sister Gladys fumes when the girl's aunt greets her long-lost niece with indifference.
Q 23In A Girl Named Disaster, which trader's wife offers to raise Nhamo as her own daughter?
Rosa
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.
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.
Q 14In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo's boat drifts off course into which body of water, stranding her for months?
Lake Cabora Bassa
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.
Q 15In A Girl Named Disaster, what does Nhamo call the outcast that the island troop constantly bullies?
Rumpy
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.
Q 16In A Girl Named Disaster, what are the njuzu that Nhamo first meets in a dream as two beautiful girls?
Water spirits
Water spirits called njuzu also appear as snakes, and when Nhamo gives up eating and drinking they force a drink into her.
Q 17In A Girl Named Disaster, which child-eating witch from a village story haunts Nhamo's dreams on the islands?
Long Teats
Long Teats, who in the tale gives birth to locusts, goes on speaking to Nhamo until an exorcism on a mountain drives her out.
Q 18In A Girl Named Disaster, which creature's sting makes Nhamo hallucinate and vomit while she works on a boat?
A scorpion
A scorpion sting brings on a fevered dream in which a betrayed princess sends her cattle, her people and finally herself over a cliff.
Q 19In A Girl Named Disaster, what is the name of the science station that becomes Nhamo's true home?
Efifi
Efifi's staff treat Nhamo as a kind of adopted niece and granddaughter, and she goes back there to work during her school holidays.
Q 20In A Girl Named Disaster, which member of the science station staff does Nhamo come to call Mother?
Dr. Masuku
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.
Q 24In A Girl Named Disaster, which sweet-tempered cousin is one of the few villagers who is kind to Nhamo?
Masvita
Masvita survives the epidemic, and a letter at the end of the story reports that she is now a mother of two.
Q 25In A Girl Named Disaster, which bad-tempered aunt makes Nhamo do most of the hard work in the village?
Chipo
Chipo has resented Nhamo's mother since they were girls, and she later fakes a spirit possession to turn the family against her niece.
Q 26In A Girl Named Disaster, what kind of specialist is the muvuki whom Nhamo's family consults at the trading post?
A witch finder
A witch finder, the muvuki throws divining sticks called hakata, then blames the deaths on the spirit of a man Nhamo's father killed.
Q 27In A Girl Named Disaster, Nhamo's wealthy grandfather on her father's side made his fortune from which mineral?
Chrome
Chrome paid for a mansion with a doorbell and servants, a world away from the village where Nhamo pounded grain and hauled water.
Q 28In A Girl Named Disaster, which relative, a traditional healer, takes Nhamo to see her father's grave?
Her great-grandfather
Her great-grandfather tells Nhamo how her disowned father dug tunnels under that very mountain until they collapsed with him inside.
Q 29In A Girl Named Disaster, which river animals frighten Nhamo ashore, though she later misses their company?
Hippos
Hippos keep her camped on the bank for days, long enough to trap fish, get used to the water and grow strong.
Q 30In A Girl Named Disaster, which skill does Nhamo use to calm her fears and pass lonely hours on the journey?
Telling stories
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.