Neal Shusterman
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50 free Neal Shusterman trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Neal Shusterman has spent more than three decades writing novels that ask teenagers uncomfortable questions: what a society would do if nobody died, who decides which lives are worth keeping, and what it feels like when your own mind stops being reliable. Along the way he has written for television, worked under a pen name and collected some of the biggest honours in young adult publishing. This quiz covers the whole shelf. Expect questions on the world of Scythe and its sequels, the runaways of Unwind, Challenger Deep, Everlost, Dry and The Schwa Was Here, plus the lesser-known thrillers and retold fairy tales, and the surprising ways the books came to be written. It is written for readers who have finished at least one of his series, for students meeting his work in class, and for book clubs and librarians who want a ready-made round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up a few fun facts even on the ones you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Neal Shusterman's Scythe, which benevolent AI governs a world that has conquered death?
The Thunderhead
The Thunderhead runs every essential function on Earth, yet it may not interfere with the scythes and can only watch what they do.
Q 02In Neal Shusterman's Scythe, what do scythes call the permanent killings they are ordered to carry out?
Gleaning
Gleaning is the scythes' word for a death that cannot be undone, in a future where everyone else who dies is simply revived.
Q 03In Neal Shusterman's Unwind, the Bill of Life ends a second American civil war fought over which issue?
Abortion
Abortion caused the Heartland War, and the peace deal banned it while letting parents have children aged 13 to 18 unwound instead.
Q 04Neal Shusterman's Challenger Deep is named after the deepest known point of Earth's seabed, found where?
The Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench holds the real Challenger Deep, and in the novel Caden Bosch imagines sailing there under a captain whose parrot urges mutiny.
Q 05Neal Shusterman says his deadly amusement park thriller Full Tilt was inspired by a hellish day where?
Six Flags
Six Flags gave him the bad day behind Full Tilt, in which Blake must survive rides that can truly kill in order to rescue his younger brother Quinn.
Q 06Thrown out of class daily in third grade, Neal Shusterman was sent instead to which school staff member?
The librarian
The librarian, Judith Shapiro, took him in, and he went from the slowest reader in his class to winning the school's reading award.
Q 07Neal Shusterman says he pictured the robed killers of Scythe as resembling which Star Wars group?
The Jedi Order
The Jedi Order was his model for the scythes, a monk-like brotherhood trusted with thinning the population once nature could no longer do it.
Q 08In Neal Shusterman's Dry, a drought called the Tap-Out empties the taps of which US state?
California
California runs out of water in the novel, and a quiet suburban street turns into a war zone as neighbours hunt for something to drink.
Q 09Neal Shusterman says he regularly takes which kind of solo trip to get his writing done?
A cruise
A cruise is his floating office: he sails alone to write, and jokes that working on board makes the holiday tax deductible.
Q 10The unnoticed boy in Neal Shusterman's The Schwa Was Here shares his surname with which feature of English?
An unstressed vowel
An unstressed vowel, the schwa is written as an upside-down e, and the idea came when Shusterman failed to notice a boy with his hand up.
Q 11Neal Shusterman, author of Scythe and Unwind, was born and raised in which borough of New York City?
Brooklyn
Brooklyn was home until he was sixteen, and it is also the home of Antsy Bonano, the narrator of The Schwa Was Here.
Q 12At sixteen, Neal Shusterman moved abroad with his family to which foreign capital, where he finished high school?
Mexico City
Mexico City was home for his last two years of school, at the American School Foundation, and he says living abroad gave him lasting confidence.
Q 13Neal Shusterman's Challenger Deep, a novel about a teenager's mental illness, won which major prize in 2015?
The National Book Award
Q 21In Neal Shusterman's Everlost, Mary Hightower shelters lost children in which destroyed New York landmark?
The Twin Towers
The Twin Towers stand on in Everlost because places that were loved enough cross over when they are destroyed, as cherished objects do.
Q 22In Neal Shusterman's Everwild, Mary Hightower travels in the ghost of which famous airship?
The Hindenburg
The Hindenburg survives in Everlost as a memory of the airship that burned, and Mary uses it to spread her propaganda and win followers quickly.
Q 23In Neal Shusterman's Unwind, the Admiral hides runaway teenagers at the Graveyard, a refuge full of what?
Retired aircraft
The National Book Award for Young People's Literature went to the novel, and Shusterman invited his son on stage to help him accept it.
Q 14Under which pen name did Neal Shusterman write young adult novelizations of X-Files episodes in the 1990s?
Easton Royce
Easton Royce is the name on Voltage, his book version of an episode about a boy who controls lightning, and on tie-ins for Space: Above and Beyond.
Q 15Neal Shusterman wrote the TV version of The Werewolf of Fever Swamp for which 1990s children's horror series?
Goosebumps
Goosebumps hired him to turn the swamp tale into a TV special, and he also wrote episodes of Animorphs and The Haunting Hour.
Q 16Which author invited Neal Shusterman to write novels running parallel to his own classic about a child commander?
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card wanted companion novels to Ender's Game, but their schedules clashed, so he ended up writing the parallel series himself.
Q 17At the end of Neal Shusterman's Scythe, Citra Terranova names herself after which historical figure?
Anastasia Romanov
Anastasia Romanov, the Russian grand duchess, becomes Citra's Patron Historic, and she picks teal robes to go with the new name.
Q 18In Neal Shusterman's Arc of a Scythe series, Rowan Damisch hunts corrupt scythes under which self-chosen name?
Lucifer
Lucifer, after the fallen angel, is the name Rowan takes as an unordained vigilante, burning the scythes he kills so they cannot be revived.
Q 19In Neal Shusterman's Unwind, what is the term for a child like Lev, raised from birth to be unwound?
A tithe
A tithe is a child given up as an act of religious charity, and Lev's unwinding was planned from his birth, so at first he resists being rescued.
Q 20In Neal Shusterman's Everlost, what name is given to the children stranded in the world between life and death?
Afterlights
Afterlights keep the exact appearance they had at the moment they died, cannot be seen by the living, and include no adults.
Retired aircraft fill the Graveyard, which the Admiral runs as a haven to atone for helping to create the law that allows unwinding.
Q 24In Roxy, which Neal Shusterman wrote with his son, the title character is the human form of what?
A painkiller drug
A painkiller drug, OxyContin, becomes the seductive Roxy, who bets the Adderall god Addison over which of them can bring a human to the Party first.
Q 25In Neal Shusterman's Game Changer, Ash is knocked into parallel universes by a hard hit while playing which sport?
Football
Football sends Ash into another dimension with a single hit, and each new world drifts further from his own until he sees life through different eyes.
Q 26In Neal Shusterman's All Better Now, survivors of a deadly virus are left with which unexpected lasting effect?
Utter contentment
Utter contentment follows recovery, which alarms the powerful people who profit from unhappy customers and sets off a race for a vaccine.
Q 27Neal Shusterman's graphic novel Courage to Dream sets Jewish folklore and tales of hope during which atrocity?
The Holocaust
The Holocaust is explored through five interlocking narratives illustrated by Andrés Vera Martínez, and the result was named a Sydney Taylor Honor book.
Q 28Which celebrated director became involved in Universal's planned film of Neal Shusterman's Scythe in 2022?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg joined as the script was redrafted, six years after Universal bought the film rights to the whole Arc of a Scythe series.
Q 29Neal Shusterman's Scythe was named an Honor Book for which American prize for young adult literature?
The Printz Award
The Printz Award named Scythe an Honor Book in 2017, recognising a novel that set out to imagine a world gone right and what that would cost.
Q 30In Neal Shusterman's Scythe, which scythe first takes Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch on as his apprentices?
Faraday
Faraday trains the pair in a role neither wants, and when the scythes decree that the winner must kill the loser he tries to free them both.