Mr. Popper's Penguins
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40 free Mr. Popper's Penguins trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Mr. Popper's Penguins has been making children laugh since 1938. A small-town dreamer who has never traveled anywhere suddenly finds a real Antarctic penguin in his home, and one bird soon becomes a flock that eats its way through the family savings. The deadpan humor and the warmth underneath it have made the book a classroom favorite. This quiz follows the story from the first surprise delivery to the last page: how the Poppers keep their guests cold, fed and happy, what happens when the birds go on stage, and the choice Mr. Popper faces at the end. A few questions step outside the story to cover the people who made the book, its honors and the 2011 film. It is pitched at readers in grades 3 to 5 who have finished the book, and at teachers, librarians and parents who want a ready-made comprehension check. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the set works for a reading group, a classroom review or a printed handout.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which polar explorer answers a fan letter by sending Mr. Popper a live penguin?
Admiral Drake
Admiral Drake had promised a surprise, and it arrived from Antarctica in a box with air holes. The bird jumped out and set about inspecting the house.
Q 02In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what work does Mr. Popper do each year from spring until the end of September?
House painter
House painter is his trade, though a dreamy one: he once did a kitchen in two colors by mistake, and local housewives liked it so much they ordered the same.
Q 03In Mr. Popper's Penguins, how many penguins share the Popper home once every egg has hatched?
12
All 12 penguins share the house: the original pair plus chicks from ten eggs, laid one every third day. Mr. Popper is astonished, since he knows penguins lay only two eggs a season.
Q 04In Mr. Popper's Penguins, where does the explorer who bails Mr. Popper out of jail want to start a penguin colony?
The North Pole
The North Pole has no penguins, so the government has asked him to found a colony there. Mr. Popper agrees because touring in warm weather is making his birds ill.
Q 05Which comedy star plays Tom Popper in the 2011 film loosely based on Mr. Popper's Penguins?
Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey landed the lead after Ben Stiller, who considered it first, never fully committed. Owen Wilson and Jack Black were considered for the part too.
Q 06In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does an expert suspect is the real trouble with Mr. Popper's ailing first penguin?
Loneliness
Loneliness is his guess, because a female penguin in his own care is pining in just the same way. He sends her to the Poppers, and both birds soon recover.
Q 07In Mr. Popper's Penguins, where does the first penguin sleep once a serviceman has drilled air holes in its door?
The icebox
The icebox becomes a bedroom, and Mr. Popper spends his last five-dollar bill on a handle fitted inside the door so the bird can let itself out.
Q 08Which husband-and-wife writing team from Chicago created the children's classic Mr. Popper's Penguins?
Richard and Florence Atwater
Richard and Florence Atwater share the credit because she rewrote his draft after two publishers turned the original down. Her revised version was the one that sold.
Q 09In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does Mr. Popper use as a leash when he first walks his penguin around town?
A clothesline
A clothesline borrowed from Mrs. Popper ties the bird to his wrist. He also dresses in black and white for the outing, so that man and penguin match.
Q 10In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what name does Mr. Popper give his first penguin, in honor of an English explorer?
Captain Cook
Captain Cook honors James Cook, the navigator whose crews became the first Europeans on record to cross the Antarctic Circle, back in 1773.
Q 11In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what is the name of the second penguin, who arrives while the first lies gravely ill?
Greta
Greta moves in with the first penguin and both recover, but the pair look so alike that Mr. Popper has to mark each bird's name on its back.
Q 12In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which hometown has Mr. Popper never once left before the penguins arrive?
Stillwater
Stillwater is all he knows, yet he dreams of India, the South Seas and the polar ice, tracing explorers' routes on a small globe his children gave him.
Q 13In Mr. Popper's Penguins, how does the faraway explorer reply to the admiring letter Mr. Popper sent him?
In a radio broadcast
Q 21In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does Mr. Popper make by running a hose over the snow-covered floors of the house?
A skating rink
A skating rink forms once the water freezes, and the penguins toboggan down the snowdrifts onto the ice. The drifts had blown indoors during a November blizzard.
Q 22How does Mr. Popper's Penguins end for Mr. Popper himself, once the penguins' stage career is over?
He sails away with them
He sails away with them, invited aboard at the last minute to care for the birds. From the gangplank he asks his wife whether she minds him being gone a year or two.
Q 23In Mr. Popper's Penguins, a penguin drags Mr. Popper down three flights of stairs behind what kind of shop?
In a radio broadcast from Antarctica, picked up at home one September night, he thanks Mr. Popper by name and hints that a surprise is on its way.
Q 14In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which food does Mrs. Popper warn the children they will eat every day all winter?
Beans
Beans are the plan because Mr. Popper earns nothing between September and spring, so the savings have to stretch. Sunday roasts are off the menu too.
Q 15In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what kind of place, run by a curator, sends Mr. Popper his second penguin?
An aquarium
An aquarium has a female penguin wasting away just like Mr. Popper's bird, so its curator ships her to him. Mr. Popper had written there begging for advice.
Q 16In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which instrument does Mrs. Popper play with gloves on while the penguins rehearse?
The piano
The piano had been carried down to the freezing cellar, so her hands needed gloves. Each tune she plays is a cue that tells the birds which trick comes next.
Q 17In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what mistake by a sleepy Mr. Popper gets him arrested in New York?
Going to the wrong theater
Going to the wrong theater was an easy slip: after a night spent cooling the birds he asked for the Regal when the act was booked at the Royal, and the manager had him arrested.
Q 18In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which performing animals share a dressing room with the penguins at the Regal Theater?
Seals
Seals, six of them, were expected to make a meal of the penguins. Instead firemen found the birds parading around them, and put their helmets on the penguins' heads.
Q 19In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does Mr. Klein offer the penguins that Mr. Popper turns down for their sake?
Hollywood movie roles
Hollywood movie roles would have made the Poppers rich, but Mr. Popper felt that life would not suit the birds. He did let Mr. Klein make one film of their stage tricks.
Q 20In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what are the names of the two Popper children, who go along on the stage tour?
Janie and Bill
Janie and Bill assure a visiting officer that the strange bird is simply the family pet. The 2011 film kept their names almost unchanged, as Janie and Billy.
A barbershop
A barbershop is where the walk falls apart: the bird leans toward a customer's lathered face, the man bolts, and the pair are sent out the back way to the stairs.
Q 24In Mr. Popper's Penguins, polar pictures cut from which magazine cover the walls of the Poppers' living room?
National Geographic
National Geographic photographs paper the room because Mr. Popper, who has never traveled, spends every free winter hour reading about the Arctic and Antarctic.
Q 25In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does Mr. Popper call the heap of household odds and ends his first penguin gathers?
A rookery
A rookery, he explains, is a penguin's nesting ground. In Antarctica it would be built of stones, so the bird makes do with whatever it finds under the furniture.
Q 26Mr. Popper's Penguins was named an Honor Book, a runner-up, for which American children's literature prize?
The Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal itself went to Thimble Summer that year. Schoolchildren in the Pacific Northwest later voted the penguin story their Young Reader's Choice winner.
Q 27In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which theater owner signs the penguins for a ten-week tour of the country?
Mr. Greenbaum
Mr. Greenbaum hires them on the spot after the birds rescue his show, filling in for a closing act that never turned up. The pay is $5,000 a week.
Q 28In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what is moved up to the living room when a freezing plant is fitted in the cellar?
The furnace
The furnace goes upstairs so the cellar can stay icy all year, giving the birds a home that outlasts the winter. The engineer's bill then helps drain the family savings.
Q 29In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which performer's act do the penguins ruin in Minneapolis by hiding under her skirts?
An opera singer
An opera singer had refused to go on unless the penguins were shut away, but they slipped up another staircase into the orchestra pit and then onto the stage.
Q 30In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which composer's Military March do the penguins parade to like soldiers?
Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert wrote the Military March that opens the act. A flipper fight to the Merry Widow Waltz comes next, then a scramble up ladders and a toboggan slide back down.