Farmer Boy
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
40 free Farmer Boy trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Farmer Boy is the Little House book with no little house on the prairie in it. Laura Ingalls Wilder set aside her own childhood to tell the story of a boy named Almanzo, growing up in the 1860s on a big, busy family farm where every season brings its own work and its own feasts. This quiz follows him through the book: the walk to a one-room school, the rough older pupils who torment teachers, calves to train, ice to cut, crops to rescue from frost, the Fourth of July in town, the County Fair, Christmas, and the choice he has to make at the end. A handful of questions step outside the story to the real Wilder family, the illustrators and what became of the farm. It is written for young readers who have just finished the book and for the parents and teachers reading along. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so it works as a chapter review, a book club warm-up or practice before an AR quiz.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Farmer Boy, what name does Almanzo give the colt his father finally lets him keep?
Starlight
Starlight, named for the white star on his forehead, is the reward for choosing farm life over a trade in town. Almanzo had spent the whole book proving he was gentle enough to train a young horse.
Q 02Farmer Boy tells the childhood of which member of author Laura Ingalls Wilder's family?
Her husband
Her husband, Almanzo Wilder, grew up on a prosperous farm in the 1860s. The book steps away from Laura's own pioneer childhood to follow his, a full year of chores, feasts and schooldays.
Q 03In Farmer Boy, what does an angry Almanzo let fly, leaving a black splotch on the parlor wall?
A stove-blacking brush
A stove-blacking brush sails past his sister's head while their parents are away, and she quietly patches the wallpaper. Restorers of the real farmhouse later found a black stain on the parlor wall.
Q 04In Farmer Boy, what does Almanzo raise on milk and enter at the County Fair to win first prize?
A pumpkin
A pumpkin fed on milk grows so huge that Almanzo cannot lift it, or even roll it over. He frets that the judges might call the milk trick cheating, but his father knew all about it.
Q 05In Farmer Boy, what does Almanzo buy with the half-dollar his father hands him in town?
A piglet
A piglet was his father's own suggestion: raised well, she could produce a litter worth far more than fifty cents. Almanzo names her Lucy and feeds her at first from a rag dipped in milk.
Q 06The big Wilder family farm in Farmer Boy lies in which state, far from Laura's prairie?
New York
New York, up near the Canadian border, is where the Wilders farmed long before any of them went west. The cold there was deep enough to cut pond ice into blocks that lasted through summer.
Q 07In Farmer Boy, which birthday present lets Almanzo start training his calves Star and Bright?
A wooden yoke
A wooden yoke, made by his father from red cedar so it is strong yet light, turns the two calves into a team. Almanzo skips school that day to teach them to start, stop and turn.
Q 08In Farmer Boy, how do the Wilders save their young corn after a freak summer frost?
Watering each plant
Watering each plant before the sun touches it thaws the frozen leaves gently. The whole family races down the rows before dawn, and only a quarter of an acre is lost.
Q 09Among the four Wilder children in Farmer Boy, where does Almanzo come in age?
The youngest
The youngest of the four, he trails Royal and both his sisters, so he is the one told to carry the dinner pail to school. The real Almanzo also had an older sister the book leaves out.
Q 10In Farmer Boy, what do the Wilders gather in buckets as the snow melts to boil into sugar?
Tree sap
Tree sap from the farm's maples is boiled down into syrup and hard cakes of sugar, enough to last the family all year. Almanzo hauls the full buckets from tree to tree through the snow.
Q 11In Farmer Boy, which gentle schoolmaster boards with the Wilder family for two weeks of the term?
Mr. Corse
Mr. Corse is slim, pale and patient. When a small boy misses a word he keeps him in at recess to learn it instead of rapping his hand with a ruler.
Q 12In Farmer Boy, whose lost pocketbook stuffed with $1,500 does Almanzo find on the road to town?
Mr. Thompson
Mr. Thompson is so stingy and so wary of banks that he carries the cash from a land sale in his pocket. He counts every bill in front of Almanzo and all but calls the boy a thief.
Q 13In Farmer Boy, which trade does Mr. Paddock offer to teach Almanzo as his apprentice in town?
Wagon making
Q 21In Farmer Boy, which Christmas stocking gift does Almanzo find along with a new cap and mittens?
A jackknife
A jackknife with four blades is the one present he cannot guess by feel, thin and hard inside the stocking. Until then he had to borrow his father's to whittle a handle for his whip.
Q 22In Farmer Boy, what do the big boys from Hardscrabble Settlement come to school to do to teachers?
Beat him up
Beat him up and break up the school is their boast, and no teacher has ever finished a term against them. This year the quiet new master is ready with a borrowed ox whip fifteen feet long.
Q 23In Farmer Boy, which rule binds the Wilder children at the supper table when a guest is present?
Wagon making could one day have handed Almanzo a thriving business of his own. His parents weigh the offer, then leave the choice to him, and all he asks for is a colt.
Q 14In Farmer Boy, cousin Frank goads Almanzo into asking his father for a nickel to buy what?
Lemonade
Lemonade, pink and a nickel a glass, is what Frank drinks in front of him at the Independence Day celebration. Almanzo's father answers the request with a lesson about what money is worth.
Q 15In Farmer Boy, Father says a half-dollar holds the work of raising half a bushel of which crop?
Potatoes
Potatoes take a year of plowing, planting, hoeing and digging before they can be sold, Father explains. Only then does he hand over the coin and let Almanzo decide how to spend it.
Q 16In Farmer Boy, what do the Wilders pack around the pond ice to keep it frozen all summer?
Sawdust
Sawdust hauled from the lumber mill goes down in thick layers under, between and over the blocks. Packed that way, the ice is dug out in hot weather so Mother can make ice cream.
Q 17In Farmer Boy, which bossy sister of Almanzo went on to teach Laura Ingalls in real life?
Eliza Jane
Eliza Jane orders her little brother about all through the book. Years later she taught school in Dakota Territory, having moved there and taken a land claim along with her brothers Royal and Almanzo.
Q 18At the County Fair in Farmer Boy, which animal does Almanzo meet for the first time, braying loudly?
A mule
A mule lets out a bray that sends Almanzo fighting through the crowd to his father, who says it is only half horse. Father adds that his son was not the only one who was scared.
Q 19In Farmer Boy, which machine does Mother work for hours to turn the farm's wool into cloth?
A loom
A loom stands upstairs in the farmhouse, its thud carrying through the rooms below. After each spring shearing Mother weaves the cloth for the family's suits and dresses herself.
Q 20In Farmer Boy, which of Mother's homemade goods does a well-dressed city buyer come for every year?
Butter
Butter from Mother's cellar, five hundred pounds of it, earns her $250 in a single sale. She hitches up straight away to carry the money to the bank.
They must keep silent
They must keep silent apart from a polite thank-you, because children were to be seen and not heard. Almanzo eats his way through supper while his parents and the boarding teacher talk over his head.
Q 24In Farmer Boy, which jolly spring visitor swaps new household wares for Mother's saved-up rags?
The tin peddler
The tin peddler, Nick Brown, drives a bright red cart from farm to farm, telling stories and singing songs. Mother bargains hard over every pan and pail before she parts with her rag bags.
Q 25In Farmer Boy, which travelling craftsman sets up his bench in the Wilders' dining room each fall?
The cobbler
The cobbler turns up three weeks late that year, with Almanzo's moccasins already worn to rags. He makes the family's boots and shoes from hides the Wilders had tanned the year before.
Q 26In Farmer Boy, which career does Almanzo's older brother Royal announce he wants instead of farming?
Storekeeper
Storekeeper is Royal's choice because such men dress up every day, keep clean and ride behind a carriage and pair. He confides it to Almanzo in bed one night, having shown little interest in the chores.
Q 27In Farmer Boy, what do the men fire in the town square to thrill the Fourth of July crowd?
Cannons
Cannons, two brass ones, are packed with black powder and then with armfuls of grass and weeds the boys pull beside the railroad tracks. Two men touch them off with red-hot rods.
Q 28In Farmer Boy, who grabs Almanzo by the leg just as he slides toward open water at the ice pond?
French Joe
French Joe, one of two woodsmen hired to saw the ice, jerks him back just in time. Father says Almanzo ought to have the worst whipping of his life, then lets the fright be punishment enough.
Q 29At the fair in Farmer Boy, which huge European draft horses does Father say could pull a barn?
Belgians
Belgians had reached America by way of Canada, Father explains, after crossing the ocean by ship. Almanzo decides that the family's lighter horses suit a buggy far better.
Q 30The farm in Farmer Boy lies a few miles from which town, where the Wilders spend Independence Day?
Malone
Malone is where the band plays, the Declaration is read and Almanzo learns what a half-dollar is worth. The real farmhouse still stands about five miles east of the village.