Pax (Novel)
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40 free Pax (Novel) trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Pax is one of the most widely taught middle-grade novels of the past decade, and one of the hardest to forget. It opens with a boy abandoning the tame fox he has raised, then follows the two of them in alternating chapters as each tries to get back to the other while armies gather around them. It is a short book about loyalty, anger and what fighting costs the creatures who never chose it. This quiz covers the story from the roadside opening to the last page: what happens to the boy on his trek, the hermit who takes him in and the secrets she keeps in her barn, the foxes who teach a pampered pet how to survive, and the details that reading quizzes like to ask about. A smaller group of questions looks at the author, the illustrator, the research behind the animal chapters, the prizes and the sequel. It suits pupils checking what they remember before a class test or a book-club meeting, teachers and librarians who want ready-made questions, and anyone who read the novel and wants to see how much of it stayed with them. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does Peter throw into the woods as a trick, so Pax will chase it and be left behind?
A toy soldier
A toy soldier was Pax's favourite plaything, so he bounds after it believing it is a game, and comes back to the road in time to see the car driving away.
Q 02What does the Latin word pax, the name Peter gives his pet fox, mean in English?
Peace
Peace is the meaning, and Peter comes to find the name bitterly ironic: his pet was abandoned, and may die, because of a war.
Q 03Which relative is Peter sent to live with, hundreds of miles from Pax, at the start of the novel?
His grandfather
His grandfather has no room for a fox, tame or otherwise, and Peter lasts less than a night there before remorse sends him hiking back.
Q 04How did Peter's mother die, five years before the events of the novel Pax begin?
A car accident
A car accident killed her on a grocery run, and Peter blames himself: he had been kept behind that day as a punishment for an angry outburst.
Q 05Which predators is Pax fighting off when Peter finally catches up with him at the novel's climax?
Coyotes
Coyotes close in because they sense an injured fox in Pax's group, and Peter's arrival helps to drive them away.
Q 06Where does Peter decide Pax belongs when the two finally meet again at the end of the novel?
In the wild
In the wild, Peter decides: seeing Pax defend his new companions, he lets him go instead of taking him back.
Q 07Which injury halts Peter's cross-country trek in Pax and strands him at a stranger's farm?
A broken foot
A broken foot from a fall stops Peter in his tracks, and Vola, the hermit who finds him in her barn, sets the bone and teaches him to use crutches.
Q 08What does the young fox Runt lose when a land mine explodes near the army camp in Pax?
A hind leg
A hind leg is the price Runt pays for tripping a wire, and Pax and Bristle stay close to nurse him back to health.
Q 09What does Peter's father do at the start of Pax that forces the boy to give up his fox?
He enlists
He enlists as war approaches, and when father and son meet again near the front, Peter accuses him of having known what was coming.
Q 10Which American author, known for funny chapter books, wrote the wartime novel Pax?
Sara Pennypacker
Sara Pennypacker described her earlier stories as humorous and set in a secure world, a long way from this tale of a boy and a fox caught in a war.
Q 11What kind of puppets does Vola keep under burlap in her barn and ask Peter to operate?
Marionettes
Marionettes, so lifelike that Peter first takes them for real heads, include a bird with a wingspan of almost five feet.
Q 12Which mythical creature is the charm on the bracelet that Peter keeps from his late mother?
A phoenix
A phoenix was a charm his mother loved, and Peter borrows the image for his puppet show, in which Vola burns and rises from the ashes to start again.
Q 13Which sandwich filling can Peter not eat on his trek because it reminds him of Pax?
Peanut butter
Peanut butter is Pax's great treat: after his first successful hunt he shares his prized jar of it with Bristle and Runt.
Q 21What kind of vehicle, driven by a friend of Vola's, takes Peter as close to Pax as the roads allow?
A bus
A bus gets Peter back on his way: Vola asks the driver, a friend, to drop him as near as he can to the place where Pax was left.
Q 22Which craft does Peter learn from Vola while he waits for his injury to heal on her farm?
Wood carving
Wood carving is Vola's own art, the one behind her puppets, and Peter becomes good enough at it to make a likeness of Pax.
Q 23Which garden ornament of his mother's did Peter smash in a temper on the day she died?
A gazing globe
A gazing globe, shattered in a rage, is why Peter was kept back from the shopping trip on which she died, and why he swore never to lose his temper again.
Q 14Which food from Runt can the starving Pax keep down, knowing it from his life as a pet?
Eggs
Eggs save him: Pax throws up the first thing Runt brings, then eats seven quail eggs and sleeps at last while Runt stands guard.
Q 15What is the first prey Pax manages to catch after Bristle takes him out and shows him how to hunt?
A mouse
A mouse is his first kill, and Pax is so pleased that he celebrates by leaping off a tree branch the way he has seen Runt do.
Q 16How is Runt, the playful fox who keeps trying to befriend Pax, related to the vixen Bristle?
Her younger brother
Her younger brother is drawn to Pax from the start, while Bristle, who blames people for destroying their family, warns him off the newcomer.
Q 17What catches Bristle's mother on a winter farm raid in Pax, before both parents are killed?
A trap
A trap holds her fast, and Bristle watches both parents clubbed to death, which is why she distrusts Pax and his scent of people.
Q 18Which animal wanders into a meadow in Pax and is blown up by a land mine as the armies prepare?
A deer
A deer is one of the woodland creatures killed by buried mines as Pax looks on, so readers meet the war through an animal who cannot understand it.
Q 19Which artist, creator of the picture book I Want My Hat Back, drew the illustrations for Pax?
Jon Klassen
Jon Klassen drew the cover and interior art for Pax, and came back five years later to illustrate its sequel as well.
Q 20Which piece of sports gear does Peter put to use on the trail after one of his crutches snaps?
A baseball bat
A baseball bat fills in after the fall: Peter hears a snap, thinks at first that he has cracked a rib, then finds the crutch has given way under him.
Q 24Where does Vola agree to donate her puppets and teach children, as her deal with Peter?
A library
A library receives the puppets as a gift, the first step in the hermit's return to the world after two decades alone.
Q 25What does Peter stop to buy at a hardware store after his first dark night as a runaway?
A flashlight
A flashlight is what he failed to pack, and buying it nearly exposes him: the shopkeeper follows him out, noting that he is walking away from the school.
Q 26What was Vola's role in the war she served in, about twenty years before she meets Peter?
A medic
A medic and not a fighter, Vola never expected to kill anyone, and the one man she did kill still haunts her two decades later.
Q 27Why has the veteran Vola chosen to live alone in the woods, far from other people, in Pax?
She feels dangerous
She feels dangerous after killing a man in combat, and Peter stages a puppet show of her own life to convince her that she is wrong.
Q 28What is the subtitle of the sequel to Pax, published five years after the first book?
Journey Home
Journey Home picks the story up a year later, with Pax raising kits of his own and Peter, now orphaned, trying to harden his heart against everyone.
Q 29Which bestselling chapter-book series was the author of Pax best known for before her fox novel?
Clementine
Clementine made her name with humour, and she has said that each new book, Pax included, feels like learning to write all over again.
Q 30Which seafaring hero's adventures do Vola's handmade puppets perform in her barn in the novel Pax?
Sinbad
Sinbad was the hero of a book Vola found on an enemy she killed in battle, and she built the puppets to tell his story as a penance.