My Side of the Mountain
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50 free My Side of the Mountain trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
My Side of the Mountain has sent readers daydreaming about running off to the woods since 1959. Sam Gribley, a city boy with a penknife, a ball of cord and forty dollars, sets out to live off the land for a year, and the book reads like his own field notes on how it went. This quiz follows Sam from his first hungry night to the last chapter: the home he makes for himself, the bird he trains to hunt, the animals that move in around him, and the handful of people who stumble on his camp. There are also questions on the author's own outdoor childhood, the recognition the novel earned, the film version and the sequels. It is written for readers in the middle grades and for the teachers and parents reading along with them. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so it works as a chapter check, a book club warm-up or a printable review before a test.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In My Side of the Mountain, Sam Gribley runs away to which New York range, Rip Van Winkle's old haunt?
The Catskills
The Catskills hide the old Gribley farm, which Sam knows only from stories. He arrives in May with little more than a penknife, a ball of cord, an ax and forty dollars.
Q 02In My Side of the Mountain, Sam Gribley makes his home inside the trunk of which towering evergreen tree?
A hemlock
A hemlock on the old Gribley land becomes Sam's shelter. He hollows it until he can sit comfortably inside, then builds a bed and, before winter, a small fireplace.
Q 03In My Side of the Mountain, what kind of bird is Frightful, which Sam Gribley trains to catch his meals?
A peregrine falcon
A peregrine falcon can top 200 mph in a hunting dive, which is why Sam wants one to catch game for him. He studies hawk training at the library before he goes looking for a chick.
Q 04In My Side of the Mountain, the lost stranger Sam Gribley nicknames Bando turns out to hold which job?
College English teacher
College English teacher is Bando's real calling, and he is lost rather than on the run. He stays about ten days and becomes the closest thing Sam has to a human friend.
Q 05Which author, who kept 173 pets besides dogs and cats, wrote My Side of the Mountain?
Jean Craighead George
Jean Craighead George wrote and illustrated the 1959 novel herself. She drew on a childhood spent camping, foraging and training hawks with her naturalist father and brothers.
Q 06At the end of My Side of the Mountain, who arrives in June planning to settle beside Sam Gribley's tree?
His whole family
His whole family turns up, parents and eight brothers and sisters, to settle on the Gribley land. His mother, stung by what the newspapers were saying, is behind the move. Sam is glad, and sorry his time alone is over.
Q 07In My Side of the Mountain, how does Sam Gribley's father respond to the plan to live off the land?
He lets Sam go
He lets Sam go, sure the boy will be back within a day or two. He asks only that Sam tell someone in town if he actually makes it.
Q 08In My Side of the Mountain, what kind of animal is The Baron, whom Sam Gribley names for his lordly strut?
A weasel
A weasel caught in one of Sam's traps earns the title by showing no fear at all. He bites Sam, marches off like royalty and keeps his den under a boulder near the tree.
Q 09In My Side of the Mountain, what do New York newspapers call the unseen Sam Gribley in their headlines?
The wild boy
The wild boy is the label the papers use after locals report glimpses of a child in the woods and deer carcasses going missing. Bando carries the clippings up the mountain to show Sam.
Q 10In My Side of the Mountain, Sam names his hunting bird Frightful in memory of which ordeal?
Taking her from the nest
Taking her from the nest means climbing a cliff while the mother bird strikes Sam again and again. He grabs the biggest of three chicks, a female, and gets away with a bloodied shoulder.
Q 11In My Side of the Mountain, the abandoned farm Sam sets out to find once belonged to which relative?
His great-grandfather
His great-grandfather's farm has been abandoned so long that the farmhouse is no longer standing when Sam finally finds the place. A librarian in the nearest town points him to it.
Q 12In My Side of the Mountain, what is Sam escaping when he leaves New York City for the woods?
A crowded apartment
A crowded apartment shared with eight brothers and sisters is all Sam has known. He wants space and quiet, and he has read up on survival at the public library before he goes.
Q 13My Side of the Mountain opens partway through the story, with Sam shut in his tree during what?
Q 21In My Side of the Mountain, which sound convinces Sam that the sleeping stranger Bando is an outlaw?
Police sirens
Police sirens wail near the mountain just before Sam finds the man asleep, so he assumes a bandit and shortens the word to a nickname. Curiosity wins, and he offers the stranger a venison meal.
Q 22In My Side of the Mountain, which craft do Sam and Bando build during Bando's ten-day summer stay?
A raft
A raft is the big project of the visit, and it outlasts it. In September Sam pushes it down the stream alone to gather arrowleaf bulbs and bulrush roots to store.
Q 23In My Side of the Mountain, Sam builds a fireplace and chimney for his tree out of which material?
Clay
A blizzard
A blizzard keeps Sam inside in early December, and he uses the time to tell how he got there. Only many chapters later does the story catch up with that storm.
Q 14In My Side of the Mountain, how does Sam enlarge the hollow in the old tree he lives in?
By burning it out
By burning it out and hacking away the charred wood, Sam turns a small cavity into a room he can sit up in. An ax is one of the few tools he carried from the city.
Q 15In My Side of the Mountain, Sam's father makes a surprise visit to the tree on which day?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day brings Sam's father up the mountain, a day after Bando arrives for the holiday. He lingers a few more days, ice fishing and setting traps, and leaves proud of his son.
Q 16In My Side of the Mountain, which character cuts Sam's hair and finds him books on training hawks?
Miss Turner
Miss Turner, the librarian in the nearest town, trims his hair with the library scissors when she sees how long it has grown. She is also the one who tells Sam where the old Gribley land lies.
Q 17In My Side of the Mountain, what does the elderly Mrs. Fielder make Sam help her pick?
Strawberries
Strawberries from the patch Sam thinks of as his own fill her basket, and then she marches him into town. On that walk he spots a hunting bird overhead and decides to train one.
Q 18In My Side of the Mountain, Sam leaves home with a penknife, cord, an ax, $40 and which fire starter?
Flint and steel
Flint and steel sound simple, but Sam struggles to get a flame from them on his first night out. An old man named Bill, whose door he bangs on for help, has to teach him how.
Q 19In My Side of the Mountain, Sam learns which food-gathering trick by watching the raccoon Jessie Coon James?
Digging up mussels
Digging up mussels from the creek bed is Jessie's speciality, and Sam copies her. He assumes the scrawny, cross-eyed raccoon is a male until she turns up with a litter.
Q 20In My Side of the Mountain, Bando calls Sam by the name of which 19th-century American writer?
Thoreau
Thoreau spent just over two years in a cabin he built near the pond and wrote a celebrated book about it. A boy living alone in a hollow tree strikes Bando as his natural heir.
Clay mixed with grasses makes the fireplace, and Sam shapes a small chimney from it as well. The idea comes as autumn turns cold and he realizes the tree will need heating to see him through the winter.
Q 24In My Side of the Mountain, Sam turns the hide of his first deer into what for his tree home?
A door
A door of tanned deerskin closes off the tree at last. Sam wastes nothing from the animal: the meat is eaten or stored, and a bone becomes the head of a forked frog spear.
Q 25In My Side of the Mountain, which food cures the winter nosebleeds Sam gets from a lack of vitamins?
Rabbit liver
Rabbit liver supplies the vitamin C missing from a winter without fruit or greens. Once cured, Sam worries about the animals too and chops down tree limbs for the deer to feed on.
Q 26In My Side of the Mountain, which schoolboy reporter tracks down Sam and trades his silence for a stay?
Matt Spell
Matt Spell works after school for a newspaper and hopes the story will make him a real reporter. Sam allows him a week at the camp, and Matt reveals the location anyway.
Q 27In My Side of the Mountain, what was Sam's father before he took work on the New York docks?
A sailor
A sailor until Sam was born, he always seemed to like the sea better than the land. At first he doubts that his son can last more than a day or two on a mountain.
Q 28In My Side of the Mountain, Sam writes his journal entries on which material he gathers in the woods?
Birch bark
Birch bark is Sam's paper in the woods, and he covers it with notes and drawings. Those entries are woven all through the story he tells.
Q 29In My Side of the Mountain, what brings a fire warden to Sam's camp, forcing him to hide for days?
Smoke from his cooking
Smoke from his cooking gives Sam away, and the warden camps overnight beside the tree. Sam sleeps rough, checks his traps on the quiet and meets The Baron in one of them.
Q 30In My Side of the Mountain, the deerskin straps Sam cuts to tether Frightful go by which hawking term?
Jesses
Jesses are the thin straps that keep a trained bird under control on the fist or secured to a perch. Sam starts planning them while he is still hiding from the fire warden.