A Little Princess
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50 free A Little Princess trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A Little Princess has been making readers cry, and then cheer, since 1905. Sara Crewe arrives at a London boarding school as its richest pupil and is turned overnight into its hungriest servant. What keeps the book alive is how she answers that fall: with imagination, stubborn good manners and a refusal to behave like anything less than a princess. This quiz covers the whole novel, from the opening cab ride through the fog to the last visit to the baker's shop. Expect questions on Sara's friends and enemies at Miss Minchin's, the attic and its visitors, the neighbours across the square and the fortune at the heart of the plot. Others look at Frances Hodgson Burnett herself, how the tale grew from a short magazine serial into a full novel, and the screen versions made from it, including the 1939 and 1995 films. It suits a class or book club that has just finished the novel, a household that watched one of the films together, or anyone who read it years ago and wants to see how much stayed. The questions start easy and get harder, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What name does Sara Crewe give the doll she chooses with her father before he sails back to India?
Emily
Emily was named before she was bought: Sara picked the name first, then searched the toy shops with her father for the right doll. She wanted a friend to talk to about him once he had gone.
Q 02Which runaway pet from the house next door leads Sara Crewe to her rescuer in A Little Princess?
A monkey
A monkey slips over the roof into Sara's attic on a freezing night, and she carries it home the next morning. That errand brings her face to face with the man who has spent two years looking for her.
Q 03Which venture, run by an old school friend, swallows Captain Crewe's fortune in A Little Princess?
Diamond mines
Diamond mines sounded like the Arabian Nights to the schoolgirls, but the venture looked ruined when the captain died. The mines later proved rich, which is how Sara ends up an heiress.
Q 04Which child star played Sara Crewe in the 1939 Technicolor film The Little Princess?
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple made it her first film shot entirely in Technicolor, and it proved her last major success as a child star. The script gave the tale a new ending in which Sara's father is found alive.
Q 05Which Mexican director made his first American feature with the 1995 film of A Little Princess?
Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón had made just one feature in Mexico before it. He went on to direct Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, then won Best Director Oscars for Gravity and Roma.
Q 06Which classic about orphan Mary Lennox did the author of A Little Princess publish six years later?
The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden was inspired by the walled rose garden at Maytham Hall in Kent. She had written part of A Little Princess sitting in that same garden in 1904.
Q 07Which language does Miss Minchin wrongly assume Sara Crewe has never learned in A Little Princess?
French
French was her late mother's language, and her father had always spoken it with her. Miss Minchin, who could not speak it herself, looked foolish when the master called the child's accent exquisite.
Q 08What does starving Sara Crewe buy with a fourpenny piece she finds, then mostly give to a beggar?
Hot buns
Hot buns come six for her fourpence because the baker adds two for nothing. Sara hands five to a child who looks hungrier than she is and keeps only one for herself.
Q 09Which royal lets Sara Crewe search a hospital for her father in the 1939 film The Little Princess?
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria appears nowhere in the novel, where the captain really does die. The film moved the tale to the Boer War so that Sara could find him alive among the wounded.
Q 10Which job does fourteen-year-old Becky hold at Miss Minchin's school when Sara Crewe befriends her?
Scullery maid
Scullery maid was only her title: Becky also cleaned boots and grates, hauled coal up the stairs and scrubbed floors. Sara found her asleep by the sitting-room fire and let her rest.
Q 11Which servant from next door quietly fills Sara Crewe's attic with a fire, hot food and blankets?
Ram Dass
Ram Dass crept in by lantern light while Sara slept, lying flat on the floor whenever she stirred. He had first met her when he crossed the roof to fetch a runaway pet.
Q 12What name does Sara Crewe give the rat she tames with crumbs in her attic at Miss Minchin's?
Melchisedec
Melchisedec has a wife and children in the wall, so Sara saves crumbs for all of them. He learns to come out when she makes a low, coaxing whistle.
Q 13Which slow but loyal pupil becomes Sara Crewe's closest friend after being laughed at in class?
Ermengarde
Ermengarde is called the monumental dunce of the school, yet her clever father expects her to devour books. Sara coaches her through the lessons, and the two stay friends through the attic years.
Q 21Which coin does a small boy press on Sara Crewe at Christmas, mistaking her for a street beggar?
A sixpence
A sixpence was young Donald Carmichael's whole fortune, and he was sure it would keep a poor child for life. Sara bored a hole in it and wore it on a ribbon round her neck.
Q 22What does Sara Crewe call the eight-child household she watches through the windows of the square?
The Large Family
The Large Family earned the name because there were so many of them, and Sara gave each child a grand invented name. Their father turns out to be the lawyer hunting for her across Europe.
Q 23Which imprisoned queen does Sara Crewe hold up as her model for staying dignified in rags?
Marie Antoinette
Q 14Which tantrum-prone four-year-old pupil does Sara Crewe adopt as her pretend daughter?
Lottie
Lottie had lost her mother, as Sara had, and hearing that is what finally stops the screaming. Sara offers to be her mamma, and the little girl later climbs to the attic alone to find her.
Q 15Which jealous older pupil, the school's leader until Sara Crewe arrives, mocks her as Princess Sara?
Lavinia
Lavinia had been the best-dressed girl in the school until Sara's velvet coats and sable muffs appeared. She gets her revenge by telling Miss Minchin about the forbidden feast in the attic.
Q 16Which illness, made worse by business worries, kills Captain Crewe in India in A Little Princess?
Jungle fever
Jungle fever might not have killed him alone, his solicitor says, had money worries not driven him half mad. The news reaches the school in the middle of Sara's eleventh birthday party.
Q 17Which famous prison does Sara Crewe pretend her attic is, with Miss Minchin as the jailer?
The Bastille
The Bastille came from a book she had been reading about prisoners forgotten for years. Becky becomes the prisoner in the next cell, and two knocks on the wall ask whether she is there.
Q 18Which talent wins Sara Crewe more followers at Miss Minchin's school than all her luxuries do?
Storytelling
Storytelling draws even the girls who envy her, because Sara acts out each tale and changes her voice as she goes. Becky first lingers in the schoolroom to hear one about mermaids.
Q 19To which city does the 1995 film A Little Princess move Miss Minchin's school from London?
New York
New York replaced the fog of the original, and Becky became an African-American servant girl. The ending borrows from the 1939 film: Sara's father is alive, recovering in the house next door.
Q 20Which ailing neighbour, once Captain Crewe's partner, proves to be Sara Crewe's unseen benefactor?
Mr. Carrisford
Mr. Carrisford fell gravely ill and fled when the venture seemed lost, then recovered to find his friend dead. Guilt drove his two-year search for a child who was living next door all along.
Marie Antoinette seemed to Sara more of a queen in prison, insulted by her captors, than she had been in her finery. Sara decides that being a princess inside counts for more than cloth of gold.
Q 24From which Indian port has seven-year-old Sara Crewe just sailed as A Little Princess opens?
Bombay
Bombay was where the long voyage began, and Sara spends the cab ride through the fog remembering the hot deck and the lascars. She had always known she would be sent away to school one day.
Q 25Which handmade birthday present, wrapped in brown paper, does Becky leave for Sara Crewe?
A pincushion
A pincushion of old red flannel carries a birthday greeting, badly spelled and picked out in pins. Becky made it at night and hoped Sara could pretend it was satin.
Q 26Which plump, timid sister of Miss Minchin finally turns on her after Sara Crewe leaves the school?
Amelia
Miss Amelia had obeyed her sister for years, then burst into hysterics and called her a hard, selfish, worldly woman. The outburst left Miss Minchin a little in awe of her.
Q 27In which language does Sara Crewe address the lascar who comes over the roof, to his astonishment?
Hindustani
Hindustani came back to her from her early years, and the delighted servant poured out a flood of respectful thanks. His report of the polite child in the garret set her rescue in motion.
Q 28What does Sara Crewe call the unseen power that fills her bare attic with comforts while she sleeps?
The Magic
The Magic is Sara's word for the power that never lets the worst things quite happen. She thinks it rude to pry into who is behind it, so she leaves a thank-you note on the attic table instead.
Q 29Which Frances Hodgson Burnett bestseller of 1886 started a craze for dressing boys in velvet suits?
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Little Lord Fauntleroy sold so well that velvet suits, collars and even playing cards carried the name. Its hero was modelled on her younger son Vivian, whose long curls she styled herself.
Q 30In which northern English city was Frances Hodgson Burnett born, the daughter of an ironmonger?
Manchester
Manchester's cotton trade collapsed during the American Civil War and took the Hodgsons' business with it. Her widowed mother sold up, and they sailed to join an uncle in the United States.