Jason Reynolds
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
40 free Jason Reynolds trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Jason Reynolds did not finish a book until he was nearly an adult, and he grew up to write the kind of novels he wished he had been handed. That turnaround is why fun facts about him travel so well: the route from kid poet to bestselling author runs through rap cassettes, retail jobs and a first book that flopped. This quiz covers the whole story. You will find questions on his childhood and early jobs, the Track series that begins with Ghost, Long Way Down, All American Boys, Look Both Ways and Stamped, plus the friends, co-authors and illustrators he works with and the major honors he has collected. It is written for students reading him in class, teachers and librarians planning a unit or a book club, and readers who simply want to know more about the person behind the books. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which rapper's third album moved a nine-year-old Jason Reynolds to start writing poetry every day?
Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah's Black Reign was the first cassette Reynolds ever bought, and it convinced him that rap was poetry. He says he gave up reading books at about the same age.
Q 02Most of Jason Reynolds's novel Long Way Down unfolds during a single ride in what?
An elevator
An elevator carries 15-year-old Will down from his apartment with a gun in his waistband, and a victim of gun violence from his past steps on at each floor.
Q 03Which TV series featured Jason Reynolds discussing his collection of rare books and literary letters?
Antiques Roadshow
Antiques Roadshow had him on in 2021 to talk about collecting. His shelves hold an autographed first edition of Toni Morrison's Beloved and a pre-publication copy of Manchild in the Promised Land.
Q 04Which bestselling children's author graduated from Bishop McNamara High School 11 years before Jason Reynolds did?
Jeff Kinney
Jeff Kinney, creator of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, is a fellow alumnus of the school. Reynolds graduated in 2000 and went on to earn an English degree.
Q 05Where was Jason Reynolds often standing as he drafted his first novel while managing a retail store?
At the cash register
At the cash register of the Rag & Bone store he managed, Reynolds wrote whenever business was slow, after graduate schools had turned him down over his college grades.
Q 06Which Marvel hero, a Brooklyn teen on scholarship at an elite prep school, stars in a Jason Reynolds novel?
Miles Morales
Miles Morales, the Afro-Puerto Rican Spider-Man, has to survive junior year as well as villains. Reynolds likened his approach to Jordan Peele's film Get Out, boiling big social issues down to one family.
Q 07Which author's memoir Black Boy finally hooked Jason Reynolds on reading when he was 17?
Richard Wright
Richard Wright won him over because the drama starts by page two instead of after 50 pages of setup. Reynolds found the book while working in a bookstore during college.
Q 08In Jason Reynolds's novel Ghost, which snack is the fact-loving title character always buying and eating?
Sunflower seeds
Sunflower seeds are his habit, bought from a neighborhood store and eaten at a bus stop while he watches gym-goers tire themselves out on treadmills, which he finds hilarious.
Q 09Jason Reynolds's four-episode Radiotopia podcast explores his bond with which member of his family?
His mother
His mother, Isabell, joins him on My Mother Made Me, where talk of birth, death and spirituality sits beside trips to Costco and the casino.
Q 10Which institution named Jason Reynolds its National Ambassador for Young People's Literature from 2020 to 2022?
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress created the post in 2008, modeled on Britain's Children's Laureate, and gave it first to Jon Scieszka.
Q 11Which author co-wrote the two-voiced novel All American Boys with Jason Reynolds after they met on a book tour?
Brendan Kiely
Brendan Kiely wrote the white teenager who witnesses a police beating while Reynolds wrote the victim, a partnership that began when the two shared a room on a 2013 tour.
Q 12Jason Reynolds's Stamped is a young readers' 'remix' of a National Book Award winner by which scholar?
Ibram X. Kendi
Ibram X. Kendi asked Reynolds to rework his 2016 book for teens, and Reynolds first said no because he saw himself strictly as a fiction writer.
Q 13Jason Reynolds was born in which city before growing up in the neighboring suburb of Oxon Hill?
Washington, DC
Q 21In All American Boys, which teenager's chapters, narrated after a police beating, did Jason Reynolds write?
Rashad Butler
Rashad Butler is wrongly suspected of stealing in a convenience store, and Reynolds wrote his side of the story from a hospital bed while his co-author voiced a witness.
Q 22A photo of Amiri Baraka dancing with which poet at a 1991 celebration inspired Jason Reynolds's first picture book?
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou, in a sparkly top, was caught mid-dance by a New York Times photographer, and Reynolds said the image had intrigued him for years.
Q 23At which university did Jason Reynolds earn an English degree despite failing a college English class?
Maryland
Washington, DC was his birthplace, and the family moved just two blocks over the city line to get a yard and enough room to shelter grandparents, aunties and cousins.
Q 14Jason Reynolds's Look Both Ways follows a different group of middle schoolers through which part of their day?
The walk home
The walk home interested Reynolds as a stretch when kids are unsupervised and get to learn about the world on their own, for better or for worse.
Q 15Jason Reynolds first performed his poem For Every One at an event for a memorial to which leader?
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was being honored at the Kennedy Center when Reynolds first performed the poem, an encouragement to young dreamers that was published as a book in 2018.
Q 16Which poet is celebrated in Jason Reynolds's first picture book, set at a joyous Harlem library party?
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes had an auditorium named for him at the Schomburg Center in 1991, and the book restages its opening-night party with famous writers peering out from the spines of their books.
Q 17Which foundation named Jason Reynolds a fellow in 2024 for depicting the rich inner lives of kids of color?
MacArthur
The MacArthur Foundation picked him at age 40 for one of its fellowships, popularly known as genius grants, praising his poet's ear for rhythm.
Q 18Jason Reynolds wrote Long Way Down, about a teen weighing revenge for his brother, in which form?
In verse
In verse was a homecoming for Reynolds, who had published poetry collections for years before his first novel, and the book went on to be named a Newbery Honor title.
Q 19Which 2014 book was Jason Reynolds's first novel, winning him a new-talent award from librarians?
When I Was the Greatest
When I Was the Greatest follows 15-year-old Ali and two brothers nicknamed Noodles and Needles after they crash a party in Brooklyn, and it won the John Steptoe prize for new talent.
Q 20What is the name of the elite youth track team that Ghost joins in Jason Reynolds's bestselling series?
The Defenders
The Defenders gain a new narrator in each book, and Ghost wins his place by inserting himself into a practice and proving fast enough to impress the hard-as-nails coach.
The University of Maryland is where Reynolds scraped through another English course with a D, first heard spoken word, and published a poetry collection as an undergraduate.
Q 24All American Boys by Jason Reynolds ranked third on the American Library Association's 2020 list of what?
Most challenged books
Most challenged books was a list the novel made over its profanity, drug use and alleged anti-police views, and one North Carolina school answered a complaint by inviting officers into class.
Q 25Jason Reynolds says the dead visitors in Long Way Down work like the 'magic' of which classic story?
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol was his comparison: nobody waves a wand, but people from Will's own life come back, and Reynolds leaves open whether they are ghosts or his subconscious.
Q 26Which Brooklyn neighborhood, Jason Reynolds's own home for years, is the setting of his first novel?
Bedford-Stuyvesant
Bedford-Stuyvesant was his base until 2016, and one review called the debut he set there a tender homage to a seemingly dangerous neighborhood.
Q 27One of Jason Reynolds's earliest poems, written at age 10 after his grandmother died, was printed where?
On the funeral program
On the funeral program is where it appeared after he wrote a few lines to console a grieving parent, and he went on to write poems as each of his grandmother's siblings passed.
Q 28In Jason Reynolds's As Brave as You, what does 11-year-old Genie discover about his grandfather in Virginia?
He is blind
He is blind, yet stubbornly self-sufficient, and the novel about two Brooklyn brothers sent to the country for a month won Reynolds the Kirkus Prize.
Q 29Jason Reynolds's Twenty-Four Seconds from Now, narrated by a nervous teenager named Neon, belongs to which genre?
Romance
Romance drives the book, which follows Neon and his girlfriend of two years as he battles a serious case of nerves and leans on his older sister for advice.
Q 30What is the real first name of the runner nicknamed Ghost in Jason Reynolds's Track series?
Castle
Castle Cranshaw gave himself the nickname, and he feels he has been running ever since the night he and his mom fled his father, who has been in jail for three years.