Dead End in Norvelt
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40 free Dead End in Norvelt trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Jack Gantos's Dead End in Norvelt turns one boy's summer of punishment in 1962 into a comedy about history, death and small-town secrets. Grounded for the whole vacation, young Jack is lent out to his elderly neighbor Miss Volker, and what starts as a chore becomes a mystery when the town's oldest residents begin dying one after another. This quiz follows the story from the accident that gets Jack grounded to the confession at the end, with questions on Bunny, Jack's feuding parents and the strange visitors who ride into town. It also covers the real place behind the book, a Depression-era experiment in community living, and the life of the author who grew up there. It suits students reading the novel in class, teachers building a review, and book clubs that want to see how much of that odd, funny summer they remember.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The real town in Dead End in Norvelt was renamed in 1937 to honor which American woman?
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt is hidden in the name: Norvelt joins the last syllables of EleaNOR and RooseVELT. Residents chose it after the First Lady visited their homestead town.
Q 02What physical reaction hits young Jack in Dead End in Norvelt every time he feels nervous?
Nosebleeds
Nosebleeds were real for the author too: Jack Gantos says he was famous as a boy for his splashy ones, with big wads of paper sticking out of his nose.
Q 03In Dead End in Norvelt, what does grounded Jack type up for his elderly neighbor Miss Volker?
Obituaries
Obituaries are Miss Volker's passion, and each one ties a dead neighbor's life to an event in history. Her hands no longer work well enough to type, so Jack becomes her scribe.
Q 04What does the ticket-writing town busybody ride around on in Jack Gantos's Dead End in Norvelt?
A giant tricycle
A giant tricycle carries him on his rounds, and he also uses it to deliver home-cooked dinners to the town's oldest residents.
Q 05What kills a dancing biker on the road in Dead End in Norvelt, drawing his gang's revenge?
A cement truck
A cement truck crushes him after he is seen dancing for miles down the road. His friends suspect he was murdered to keep the gang from moving into town.
Q 06Which sweet treats does Jack suspect are tied to the old ladies' deaths in Dead End in Norvelt?
Girl Scout cookies
Girl Scout cookies, Thin Mints above all, are handed out to the town's elderly through the Community Center, so Jack wonders what else might be in them.
Q 07While his father builds a runway in Dead End in Norvelt, what is Jack ordered to dig?
A bomb shelter
A bomb shelter is the father's answer to fears of atomic war in 1962. He never finishes the project and in the end decides not to build it after all.
Q 08Which board game sets Jack's parents arguing on his birthday in Dead End in Norvelt?
Monopoly
Monopoly splits the family: Jack's father sees the game as the American dream at work, while his mother says it teaches players to ruin others without caring.
Q 09Which top American prize for children's books did Dead End in Norvelt win in 2012?
The Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal committee praised the novel as an achingly funny romp, and its chair marveled that the deaths of old ladies could be this funny and this tender.
Q 10What business does the family of Jack's best friend Bunny run in Dead End in Norvelt?
A funeral parlor
A funeral parlor is where Bunny Huffer grew up, which explains her endless jokes about dead people. When they first met, she dragged Jack inside and pressed his hand to a dead man's neck.
Q 11Which real motorcycle club roars into town seeking revenge in Jack Gantos's Dead End in Norvelt?
Hells Angels
Hells Angels arrive after one of their own dies in town, where he had just bought a house from Miss Volker. Rumor says they put a curse on the place.
Q 12When his father's war rifle goes off in Dead End in Norvelt, what is Jack pretending to shoot at?
A drive-in movie screen
A drive-in movie screen showing a war film is his target, watched from the yard through binoculars. Jack had no idea the Japanese rifle was loaded.
Q 13In which US state is the real town of Norvelt, where Jack Gantos set his prize-winning novel?
Pennsylvania
Q 21When Jack first walks in on Miss Volker in Dead End in Norvelt, what are her hands soaking in?
Hot paraffin wax
Hot paraffin wax is her way of getting stiff fingers to move. Jack thinks she is melting the flesh off her own hands and faints on the spot.
Q 22On the final flight in Dead End in Norvelt, what do Jack and his father drop from the plane?
Balloons of red paint
Balloons of red paint are their bombs. Jack soon finds the prank uncomfortable and asks his father to take him back to the ground.
Q 23What does Jack mow down on his father's orders in Dead End in Norvelt, enraging his mother?
The cornfield
Pennsylvania is home to Norvelt, a small community in the state's southwest. Gantos was born in nearby Mount Pleasant and lived in Norvelt until he was seven.
Q 14What condition has ruined Miss Volker's hands in Dead End in Norvelt, so that she needs a typist?
Arthritis
Arthritis has crippled her fingers, so she dictates while Jack types. Gantos says a real woman filled Miss Volker's role in town, though that was not her name.
Q 15Who confesses to poisoning the last original residents at the end of Dead End in Norvelt?
Mr. Spizz
Mr. Spizz admits the murders to Miss Volker while holding her captive, then flees with a long head start on the police.
Q 16Why does the killer in Dead End in Norvelt poison the town's last original residents?
To win a bride
To win a bride, he turns to murder: Miss Volker once said she would marry him only when every original Norvelter was dead, so he hurries them along.
Q 17The real Norvelt was built in the 1930s to give which laid-off workers a fresh start?
Coal miners
Coal miners from nearby company towns were the target. Each family got a house with a few acres, a grape arbor and a chicken coop, and was expected to grow its own food.
Q 18Norvelt, the town at the heart of Jack Gantos's novel, was founded under which federal program?
The New Deal
The New Deal seeded nearly 100 planned homestead communities for out-of-work families, and Norvelt was the fourth. Its houses came with electricity and running water.
Q 19Which costume does Jack wear to sneak out at night and meet Bunny in Dead End in Norvelt?
The Grim Reaper
The Grim Reaper mask and robe hide him as he escapes through an unused chute in the basement. Bunny then tells him her father plans a new development called Hufferville.
Q 20Whose wartime PT-109 rescue does Jack read about during his grounding in Dead End in Norvelt?
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy, president during that summer of 1962, saved his torpedo boat crew in the Solomon Islands despite his own injuries. Jack's father had served in the same islands.
The cornfield was his mother's way of feeding needy neighbors, so cutting it down costs Jack his summer. He feels cowardly for telling her that his father made him do it.
Q 24Which small airplane does Jack's father bring home in Dead End in Norvelt and build a runway for?
A Piper J-3 Cub
A Piper J-3 Cub is the plane, bought for just $25 by a father who is a World War II veteran. Jack goes up in it in the story's final scene.
Q 25Which gift, found poisoned in Miss Volker's basement, puts her under arrest in Dead End in Norvelt?
A box of chocolates
A box of chocolates from an admirer was never meant for people: she dusted the sweets with rat poison herself and left them downstairs for the vermin.
Q 26Besides writing for the newspaper, which official post does Miss Volker hold in Dead End in Norvelt?
Medical examiner
Medical examiner and chief nurse are the jobs she was given when the town began. She promised to keep records on its first residents until the last one died.
Q 27Which badly behaved cat stars in the picture books that launched Jack Gantos's career in 1976?
Rotten Ralph
Rotten Ralph, drawn by Nicole Rubel, reached print only after a string of rejections that Gantos calls well deserved. The two began making picture books while he was in college.
Q 28Which boy with ADHD is the hero of five Jack Gantos novels, starting with one about a swallowed key?
Joey Pigza
Joey Pigza first appeared in 1998 in a novel that became a National Book Award finalist. His fifth and final book followed in 2014.
Q 29What homemade dish makes Jack's mother a murder suspect in Jack Gantos's Dead End in Norvelt?
Casseroles
Casseroles made with wild mushrooms she picks near the town dump go out to the old ladies, and most of the dead are found with one half-eaten.
Q 30Which label does Jack's father pin on Norvelt in Jack Gantos's novel, mocking its ideals of sharing?
A Commie town
A Commie town is his verdict on a place built on neighbors helping neighbors. He came home from the war wanting money and success, and he longs to move away.