Monument 14
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
40 free Monument 14 trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Monument 14 starts with an ordinary school run and turns it into the end of the world within a few pages. Fourteen kids, from kindergarteners to high-school seniors, end up locked inside a big-box store with everything they could want on the shelves and no adults to tell them what to do with it. This quiz covers the whole story: the chain of disasters outside, who takes charge inside, the rivalries and crushes, the strangers who turn up, and the choice that ends the first book. A few questions follow the survivors into the two sequels, and a few are about the writer and how the idea came about. It is written for readers who have finished the novel, whether for a class, a book club or the fun of it. Most questions are ones any attentive reader can get; a handful are for people who remember the small details.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the novel Monument 14, which chain superstore becomes home to fourteen students stranded by a run of disasters?
Greenway
Greenway is a fictional big-box chain, and its local branch shelters the kids for twelve days. They raid the aisles for food, sleeping bags and medicine.
Q 02In Monument 14, what freak weather wrecks Dean's school bus and kills its driver on the way to class?
A hailstorm
A hailstorm dents the roof, cracks the windshield and tips the high-school bus onto its side in a store car park. The storm is a knock-on effect of a far bigger disaster on the Atlantic coast.
Q 03Which Monument 14 bus driver rams through a store's glass doors, then goes back to rescue the older students?
Mrs. Wooly
Mrs. Wooly then sets out on foot for the hospital to fetch help, leaving the teenagers in charge, and never comes back.
Q 04In Monument 14, people with which blood group fly into a murderous rage when they breathe the leaked chemicals?
Type O
Type O is narrator Dean's own blood group, so a few breaths of the tainted air make him attack his friends. The fury fades once he is back indoors and cleaned up.
Q 05In Monument 14, what does a volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands unleash on the East Coast of America?
A megatsunami
A megatsunami half a mile tall swamps the Atlantic seaboard before dawn, and the freak weather over the Rockies follows from it. Geologists have modelled just such a wave from the same islands.
Q 06Which Boy Scout do the stranded kids of Monument 14 elect as their leader on the fourth day?
Niko
Niko beats popular senior Jake in the vote and soon has a map of the store drawn up, with a cleaning job for nearly every child.
Q 07Which champion diver in Monument 14, the girl of Dean's dreams, hides in the store's ceiling for days?
Astrid
Astrid vanishes after tainted tap water sends her into a rage in which she nearly strangles a small boy.
Q 08At the end of Monument 14, which city's airport do most of the kids set out for in a repaired school bus?
Denver
Denver International Airport is where the government is said to be evacuating survivors. Dean stays behind, afraid of what the poisoned air outside would make him do.
Q 09Which former comedy actress wrote Monument 14, her first novel, after pitching the idea to an agent friend?
Emmy Laybourne
Emmy Laybourne spent years in improv and sketch comedy before turning to fiction. She has said she quit acting because she could not bear the auditions.
Q 10What does the word Monument in the title of the novel Monument 14 actually refer to?
The kids' hometown
The kids' hometown is Monument, a real Colorado town just north of Colorado Springs, and the 14 counts the students trapped together.
Q 11In Monument 14, where does Brayden brag that his father works, the source of the later chemical weapons leak?
NORAD
NORAD really is based near Colorado Springs, a short drive from where the story is set. In the novel its secret stockpile is breached and a dark cloud rolls out over the region.
Q 12In Monument 14, what second-day disaster wakes the kids and ruptures a nearby chemical weapons store?
An earthquake
An earthquake measuring 8.2 sends the kids diving under restaurant tables and leaves every aisle strewn with fallen stock. The chapter is named for the magnitude.
Q 13In Monument 14, what do the leaked compounds do to exposed people whose blood is type A?
Severe blistering
Q 21In Monument 14, what is the name of the dog that stays behind in the store with Dean and the twins?
Luna
Luna is still with them in the sequel, hidden above the ceiling tiles alongside the youngest children when armed intruders break in.
Q 22In Monument 14, which adult outsider shoots Brayden after the kids let two men into the store?
Robbie
Robbie's bullet forces the ending: Brayden needs a hospital, so most of the group risks the drive out in search of medical help.
Q 23In Monument 14, what name is given to the plan to clean and reorganise the wrecked store, section by section?
Operation Restock
Operation Restock runs like a school day: three hours of tidying, a lunch break, then three more hours, with ruined goods hauled to an aisle renamed the Dump.
Severe blistering is the first sign in type A victims, followed by internal bleeding and organ failure. One of the teenagers breaks out in blisters within moments on the store roof.
Q 14In Monument 14, which sport do Jake Simonsen and his sidekick Brayden play for their high school?
Football
Football made Jake a big shot at his old school in Texas, and he kept that status after transferring a year before the story begins.
Q 15In Monument 14, what does Josie sound from a countertop to stop four of the boys brawling?
An air horn
An air horn marks Josie's return after days of silent shock; in the hush that follows she calls for a memorial ceremony and a leadership vote.
Q 16In Monument 14, what daily job does narrator Dean take on for the group, helped by a different child each day?
Cooking the meals
Cooking the meals has Dean turning out stuffed pancakes, curried tuna toast and cheese enchiladas from the store's shelves.
Q 17In Monument 14, what does Dean write and read aloud at the ceremony for those killed in the disasters?
A poem
A poem is Dean's contribution, written at Josie's request; he is the bookish one who keeps a notebook going through the whole ordeal.
Q 18In Monument 14, what does devout grade-schooler Batiste recite, riddled with mistakes, to close the memorial ceremony?
The Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer comes out garbled, but Batiste means every word: he spends much of the book scolding the others for sinning.
Q 19In Monument 14, first-grader Ulysses knows little English; which language does he speak with the other kids instead?
Spanish
Spanish-speaking Ulysses still makes a best friend of fellow first-grader Max, and turns up in Batman pajamas to help make huevos rancheros.
Q 20In Monument 14, which song does Dean lead the little kids in singing to drown out a raging stranger outside?
Yankee Doodle
"Yankee Doodle" works: the frightened children join in and follow Dean away from the entrance while the stranger keeps bellowing threats.
Q 24In Monument 14, what nickname do the kids give the bedrooms Josie builds out of the store's dressing rooms?
The Train
The Train got its name when little Ulysses remarked that the row of rooms looked like one. A living room with rugs, beanbags and a library sits just outside.
Q 25In Monument 14, what keeps the store's lights and freezers running while the world outside falls apart?
Rooftop solar panels
Rooftop solar panels keep working, Alex reasons, because enough light still filters through the discoloured sky to reach them.
Q 26In Monument 14, set in 2024, which real politician did Dean campaign door to door for back in sixth grade?
Cory Booker
Cory Booker was still Mayor of Newark when the novel came out in 2012; he won his Senate seat a year later.
Q 27In Monument 14, what are the handheld gadgets called that go dead when the nationwide network collapses?
Minitabs
Minitabs stop working because three of the country's five satellite centres stood on the devastated Atlantic coast.
Q 28In Monument 14, what does the elementary bus driver use to break open the emergency exit of the smoking bus?
An ax
An ax gets the rear door open just in time: the wrecked bus explodes soon after the last survivors are driven clear.
Q 29In Monument 14, with the nationwide network down, what single old device brings the kids news from outside?
A television
A television in the media department, an outdated flat-screen, still picks up the news; when its screen is damaged, Alex gets the sound working again.
Q 30Which sequel to Monument 14 follows the school bus journey and those left behind in the store at the same time?
Sky on Fire
Sky on Fire splits the telling between Dean, holed up in the store, and Alex, out on the road with the others.