Missing May
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40 free Missing May trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Missing May is a short novel that stays with readers long after the last page. In fewer than a hundred pages it follows twelve-year-old Summer and her Uncle Ob through the months after they lose Aunt May, and it does so with humor as well as sorrow. It is a classroom favorite for exactly that reason: the people in it feel real. This quiz starts with the story itself: who Summer, Ob, May and Cletus are, what each of them is like, how they change, and what happens on the trip the three survivors take together. Later questions cover the details careful readers remember, plus the awards the book earned and the life of the woman who wrote it. Use it to check your reading before a class discussion or a test on character traits, or just to revisit a favorite. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Missing May, what was Aunt May doing outside when she died suddenly, six years after taking Summer in?
Gardening
Gardening was May's own word for it, though her plot held pole beans and cabbage rather than roses. Summer feels that dying there is the only part of the loss that makes sense.
Q 02In Missing May, what does Uncle Ob, a veteran with a bad leg, enjoy crafting by the dozen?
Whirligigs
Whirligigs are objects with parts that spin in the wind, and Ob has carved dozens of them over the years.
Q 03The novel Missing May is set in a mountain home in which state, where its author also grew up?
West Virginia
West Virginia is home to Summer, Ob and May, and the author was raised in its southern hills too. She has called growing up there the wellspring of her writing.
Q 04In Missing May, what kind of rickety home do May and Ob bring six-year-old Summer back to?
A trailer
A trailer with peeling aluminum and sinking steps, set on the face of a mountain, becomes the first real home Summer has ever known.
Q 05In Missing May, what kind of person do Ob, Summer and Cletus drive off to consult about May?
A medium
A medium, a woman said to commune with the dead, is Ob's best hope of hearing what May wants to tell him. Cletus found her in a news story.
Q 06In Missing May, what do Ob, Summer and Cletus learn about the Reverend they drove to another county to see?
She has died
She has died, so nobody is left to pass on May's message. Ob is crushed, and Summer fears the disappointment is the last blow to his will to live.
Q 07In Missing May, what does Cletus claim to have had as a child that gives Ob hope of reaching May?
A near-death experience
A near-death experience at age seven, around the time his grandfather passed away, left Cletus certain there is an afterlife, which is exactly what Ob longs to hear.
Q 08Which American author, who has written more than 100 children's books, wrote the novel Missing May?
Cynthia Rylant
Cynthia Rylant later said the picture book that launched her career took her about an hour to write. Her novels, poems and early readers followed.
Q 09Which top American prize for children's literature did Missing May win the year after it was published?
Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal went to Missing May in 1993, six years after the same author had been a runner-up for it with a novel about a boy and a preacher.
Q 10In Missing May, where does Ob suddenly turn the car around to take Summer and Cletus on the drive home?
The state capitol
The state capitol had been promised to the two young people as a side trip. Ob's turn back toward it is the moment he decides to go on living.
Q 11In Missing May, after potato chip bags, buttons and wrapping paper, what does Cletus now collect?
Cut-out pictures
Cut-out pictures from newspapers and magazines are his latest passion, and he makes up stories about the people in them.
Q 12In Missing May, what does Cletus carry his prized collection around in when he comes to visit Ob?
A suitcase
A suitcase goes wherever Cletus and his collection go, and he makes up stories about what is inside. On his first visit he kept Ob listening for seven straight hours.
Q 13In Missing May, which creatures did May pity and help catch in a blanket whenever one flew into the home?
Bats
Bats got a kind word from May, and she and Ob took turns throwing a blanket over each one to carry it outside. She once nursed an injured one in a shoebox lined with warm towels.
Q 21Before May and Ob take her in, who had been raising the orphaned Summer in Missing May?
A series of relatives
A series of relatives passed her along after her mother died. None of them mistreated her, but May and Ob noticed that she was virtually ignored.
Q 22In Missing May, what does Summer fear the constantly visiting Cletus will end up doing?
Stealing Ob away from her
Stealing Ob away from her is the fear behind her rudeness, though she never admits it to herself. Cletus keeps coming back anyway, and keeps comforting Ob.
Q 23In Missing May, where do Ob, Summer and Cletus drive to in search of the Reverend?
Putnam County
Q 14In Missing May, what is the surname of Cletus, viewed as the strangest student at Summer's school?
Underwood
Underwood is the family name of the boy who meets Ob by chance shortly after May's death and quickly becomes his friend, to Summer's annoyance.
Q 15In Missing May, Uncle Ob's game leg is a reminder of his service in which war?
World War II
World War II left Ob with the game leg, which also dates the couple: he and May are already elderly when they take Summer in.
Q 16In Missing May, Summer is intrigued when Cletus offhandedly describes her as which kind of person?
A writer
A writer is how Cletus sees her. Summer does not much value his company at first, but the label and his grown-up vocabulary catch her interest.
Q 17In Missing May, which word does Cletus use for his favorite antique photo of a seemingly floating baby?
Surreal
Surreal is his word because the christening gown is so long it nearly covers the chair, so the baby appears to hover in the air.
Q 18In Missing May, where does the heartbroken Ob sit through the night when May dies?
In his old Chevy
In his old Chevy, a broken-down wreck he had held onto for years, Ob sat out the night while twelve-year-old Summer was left to worry about him.
Q 19Missing May is divided into two parts: Still as Night comes first, so what is the second called?
Set Free
Set Free covers the road trip and what follows it, and the title pays off in the closing scene, when Ob's carvings are finally carried outdoors.
Q 20In Missing May, what fills the shelves that amaze hungry six-year-old Summer when she first arrives?
Junk food
Junk food on every shelf told a girl who had always been hungry that she was welcome. She remembers it alongside the open arms May and Ob greeted her with.
Putnam County is the home of the pastor in the news story Cletus brings over. Summer is dumbfounded, because she is sure Ob would never step foot in a church.
Q 24In Missing May, what is the name of the mountain community where May, Ob and Summer live?
Deep Water
Deep Water is where the story starts and ends, and a silence falls over the car as Ob drives away from it at the start of the road trip.
Q 25In Missing May, which old car, the only one Ob owns that still runs, carries the three on their trip?
A Valiant
A Valiant is also the car Ob drove on the day he first brought Summer home, so both of the story's big journeys happen in it.
Q 26In Missing May, who answers the door at the Reverend's house and gives the travelers the bad news?
Her nephew
Her nephew stiffens when Ob begs him for help, saying he has no spiritual powers of his own. It is clear he would like the visitors to leave.
Q 27In Missing May, which illness of Summer's kept May awake at her side for 32 hours straight?
Chicken pox
Chicken pox kept May up for well over a day, a story Summer expects Ob to tell when he recalls what a good mother his wife was.
Q 28In Missing May, what does Ob do for the first time on the morning after waiting in vain for May's spirit?
He stays in bed
He stays in bed, shaking and gray, and tells Summer he must have slept late, though both know he never has. She spares his pride and goes to make coffee.
Q 29Which beginning-reader series about a boy and his enormous drooling dog did Missing May's author create?
Henry and Mudge
Henry and Mudge began in 1987 with an only child and a puppy that grows huge, and dozens more books about the pair followed.
Q 30Which earlier novel by Missing May's author follows a boy who becomes the disciple of a charismatic preacher?
A Fine White Dust
A Fine White Dust ends with the preacher running off with a young woman, yet the boy comes away with his faith strengthened. It was an Honor Book in 1987.