Children's Day Trivia
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45 free Children's Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Almost every country has a Children's Day, and almost none of them agree on when it is. The UN's observance, India's tribute to its first prime minister, Japan's Kodomo no Hi and the 1 June date kept across the former communist world all have their own origin stories, and the customs run from streamers and rice cakes to presidents handing their desks to schoolchildren. These 45 questions cover the dates and the reasons behind them, the people who pushed children's rights onto the world's agenda, the treaties and declarations that followed, and the local traditions that make each country's celebration its own. Use it for a classroom quiz around Children's Day, a family round, or just to find out which country once asked every driver to switch their headlights on for the day.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which affectionate title did Indian children give their first prime minister, whose birthday became Children's Day?
Chacha (Uncle)
Chacha (Uncle) Nehru's birthday was chosen in recognition of his work for children's welfare and education.
Q 02The UN adopted its 1959 Declaration and 1989 Convention on children's rights on which date, now World Children's Day?
20 November
The 1954 UN resolution that created Universal Children's Day left each country to pick its own date; 20 November stuck because the 1959 Declaration and the 1989 Convention were both adopted on it.
Q 03Which country's Día del Niño, on 30 April, has radio and TV hosts bring their children onto their shows?
Mexico
Mexico fixed 30 April in the 1920s under President Álvaro Obregón, steering clear of 1 May's Labour Day and Cinco de Mayo, while the UN's own date clashes with Revolution Day.
Q 04Children's Day began in the 1850s as 'Rose Day' at Charles Leonard's Universalist church in Chelsea, in which US state?
Massachusetts
Massachusetts pastor Charles Leonard called his service Rose Day, later Flower Sunday; in 1867 the Universalist Convention urged every church to set aside one Sunday a year for children.
Q 05Eglantyne Jebb, who drafted the 1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, had founded which charity in 1919?
Save the Children
Save the Children was launched in London in 1919 to feed children in Central Europe who were still going hungry under the Allied blockade after the Armistice.
Q 06Norway's Children's Day on 17 May shares its date with which national celebration, known for children's parades?
Constitution Day
Constitution Day in Norway is marked by children's parades rather than military ones, a tradition launched in the capital on the initiative of the writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson.
Q 07Kashiwa mochi eaten on Japan's Children's Day comes wrapped in which tree's leaf, which stays on until new leaves grow?
Oak
Oak leaves are not eaten, unlike the cherry leaf on sakura mochi; the tree's habit of keeping old leaves until new ones appear makes it a charm for prosperity of offspring.
Q 08UNICEF, the agency behind World Children's Day, began in 1946 with which word behind the 'E' in its name?
Emergency
Emergency was in the name because UNICEF began as a temporary fund to feed and clothe children after the Second World War; it dropped the word in 1953 but kept the acronym.
Q 09Which country, the first to make Children's Day a holiday, lets children sit in for its president and ministers?
Turkey
Turkey's children send representatives into the offices of the president, cabinet ministers, governors and mayors every 23 April, and since 1979 the festival has flown in children from abroad.
Q 10Which South Asian product does the child-labour-free label founded by 2014 Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi certify?
Rugs
Rugs can carry the label only if their makers pass inspection; Kailash Satyarthi founded the scheme in 1994 as Rugmark, and it was later renamed GoodWeave.
Q 11Which teenage campaigner addressed the UN on her 16th birthday, 12 July 2013, a date it then named after her?
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai was making her first public appearance since a Taliban gunman shot her nine months earlier, and used the speech to call for schooling for every child.
Q 12Congo, Gabon, Chad and the Central African Republic mark Children's Day on which date, already a major Christian feast?
25 December
25 December doubles as Children's Day across much of Central Africa, while Eritrea keeps 8 December and Tunisia has marked 11 January since 1995.
Q 13Japanese families displaying hina dolls for Girls' Day traditionally pack them away fast to spare a daughter which fate?
A late marriage
Q 21Which flower gives its English name to shōbu-yu, the bath of sword-shaped leaves taken on Japan's Children's Day?
Iris
Iris is the usual English name, though the bath plant is strictly sweet flag; samurai prized it for its blade-like leaves and because shōbu also sounds like a word for martial spirit.
Q 22Brazil's Dia das Crianças on 12 October shares its date with the feast of which patron saint of the country?
Our Lady of Aparecida
Our Lady of Aparecida's feast is the patron-saint holiday that gives 12 October its day off, and Brazilian children mark it by receiving presents from parents and relatives.
Q 23Which West African country's Children's Day, a 27 May school holiday since 1964, has selected schools parade?
Nigeria
A late marriage is the superstition for dolls left out past the day after Hinamatsuri; in an older custom, dolls were set adrift on rivers to carry misfortune away.
Q 14Which country's Children's Day, on the second Saturday of January, lets children sit at the prime minister's desk?
Thailand
Thailand's 'Wan Dek', held since 1955, comes with a theme and slogan from the prime minister, and Government House, Parliament and military bases open their doors to families.
Q 15The World Day Against Child Labour, marked every 12 June since 2002, was launched by which UN agency?
The ILO
The ILO (International Labour Organization) launched the day in 2002; four years earlier the Global March Against Child Labour had ended at its Geneva conference, pressing for a treaty on the worst forms of child labour.
Q 16Argentina moved its Children's Day from the second to the third Sunday of August in 2013 to stop it clashing with what?
Primary elections
Primary elections took over the second Sunday of August in 2013, so the day, when children traditionally receive toys, moved back a week and has stayed on the third Sunday since.
Q 17The UK holds its National Children's Day in summer rather than on the UN's date, for what stated reason?
So they can be outdoors
So they can be outdoors: the UN left each country to pick its own date, and the UK organisers wanted children out in their neighbourhoods and in nature, so they chose the start of summer.
Q 18Which country's 2025 presidential decree moved its Children's Day from 1 June to the UN's World Children's Day date?
Ukraine
Ukraine's decree gave its reasons: to make protecting childhood a priority for the whole country and to unite with efforts worldwide for children's rights, in line with the UN convention.
Q 19Japan's 1948 holiday law, which turned Boys' Day into Children's Day, also says the day expresses gratitude toward whom?
Mothers
Mothers get the thanks in the law's wording, while the old Boys' Day customs of armour displays, samurai dolls and streamers were opened to girls as well.
Q 20Kintarō dolls shown on Japan's Children's Day honour a folk hero said to have beaten which animals at sumo as a boy?
Bears
Bears lost to the 'Golden Boy', thought to be based on a real Heian-period retainer, Sakata Kintoki; families put up his doll in the hope that their sons grow up as brave and strong.
Nigeria is so large that only a few selected schools get to parade; other pupils spend the day on outings or doing the jobs adults normally do.
Q 24New Zealand's Children's Day, on the first Sunday in March, honours children with which Māori word for 'treasure'?
Taonga
Taonga is the word, and in 2012 the day's theme turned to peace and aroha, the Māori word for love.
Q 25In April 1919, Eglantyne Jebb was arrested in Trafalgar Square for distributing leaflets carrying what?
Famine photographs
Famine photographs of starving children filled the leaflets; she was fined £5, but the prosecutor was so impressed by her that he offered to pay the fine himself.
Q 26As of 2025, which UN member alone remains outside the Convention on the Rights of the Child, having signed it in 1995?
United States
The United States helped draft the treaty and signed it in 1995 but has never ratified it, leaving it alone among UN members outside the convention.
Q 27The UN's Day of the Girl Child, first held in 2012, grew from which NGO's 'Because I Am a Girl' campaign?
Plan International
Plan International took the idea to the Canadian government, whose status-of-women minister Rona Ambrose sponsored the UN resolution that passed in late 2011.
Q 28The Day of the African Child marks 16 June 1976, when police fired on marching pupils in which South African township?
Soweto
Soweto's pupils were marching against an order to teach them partly in Afrikaans; in 1991 African leaders named the day in memory of those who were killed.
Q 29A giant fish-shaped streamer made for Children's Day in Kazo, Saitama, in 1988 stretched roughly how far?
100 metres
100 metres of streamer weighing 350 kg was the Kazo giant, dwarfing the household streamers flown above homes with children.
Q 30The Vatican's first World Children's Day, in May 2024, opened at which Rome venue before moving to St Peter's Square?
Stadio Olimpico
Stadio Olimpico, Rome's Olympic Stadium, hosted the festival's first day, and Pope Francis then announced that the next Vatican World Children's Day would not be held until 2026.