The Indian in the Cupboard
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40 free The Indian in the Cupboard trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A plastic toy, a secondhand cupboard and a small boy who turns the lock: that is all it takes to start one of the best-loved children's fantasies of the 1980s. The Indian in the Cupboard asks what would happen if a toy figure woke up as a real person with a history, a temper and opinions, and it has kept young readers arguing about responsibility and friendship ever since. This quiz follows Omri, Patrick, Little Bear and Boone through the first book, from the opening gift to the final goodbye, then on into the four sequels, the life of the woman who created them and the 1995 Hollywood adaptation. Expect questions on the plot, the characters, the rules of the magic and the debate the series still stirs. It suits pupils who have just finished the novel, teachers and parents after a quick comprehension check, and grown-ups who read it years ago and want to see what stuck. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you miss.
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Q 01Which British novelist, already famous for the adult bestseller The L-Shaped Room, wrote The Indian in the Cupboard?
Lynne Reid Banks
Lynne Reid Banks has sold more than 15 million copies of her tale about a boy and a living plastic figure. Four sequels followed over the next 18 years.
Q 02Little Bear, the tiny man Omri brings to life in The Indian in the Cupboard, belongs to which nation?
Iroquois
Iroquois is the nation of the three-inch-tall Little Bear, an 18th-century fighter who soon starts bossing his giant host around. Some editions call him Little Bull.
Q 03The magic key in The Indian in the Cupboard once locked which belonging of Omri's great-grandmother?
A jewelry box
A jewelry box belonging to Omri's great-grandmother supplied the only key in the house that fitted the cupboard. In the sequel the same key works its magic on an ordinary chest.
Q 04Omri, the boy hero of The Indian in the Cupboard, shares his name with which member of the author's family?
Her youngest son
Her youngest son, Omri, is the child the author created the book for and dedicated it to. An older boy of hers, Gillon, also lent his name to a character.
Q 05In The Indian in the Cupboard, what is on television when Little Bear shoots Boone with an arrow?
An old Western
An old Western showing the slaughter of Native Americans has Boone cheering, and Little Bear answers by hitting the cowboy in the chest. Guilt strikes him at once, and he helps nurse Boone back to health.
Q 06The Indian in the Cupboard's screenwriter, Melissa Mathison, had earlier penned which Steven Spielberg hit?
E.T.
Mathison earned an Oscar nomination for E.T., and reviewers spotted its echoes here: another boy hiding a wondrous visitor in his bedroom. She later adapted The BFG for the same director.
Q 07Little Bear rejects the toy tipi Omri offers in The Indian in the Cupboard because his own people live in what?
Longhouses
Longhouses, framed with poles and walled with bark, could run more than 75 metres. Little Bear's scorn for the tipi sends Omri off to read about his guest's real history and culture.
Q 08The 1995 film of the British novel The Indian in the Cupboard moves Omri and his toys to which American city?
New York
New York gives the film's Omri a Manhattan townhouse to grow up in. One reviewer found this version of the place implausibly clean and cosy.
Q 09Which Muppet puppeteer, the performer of Miss Piggy, directed the 1995 film The Indian in the Cupboard?
Frank Oz
Frank Oz also performed and voiced Yoda before turning to directing. Here he swapped puppets for blue-screen effects that put full-sized and three-inch actors in one frame.
Q 10Omri is given both the plastic figure and the cupboard in The Indian in the Cupboard to mark which occasion?
His birthday
His birthday, the ninth, brings Omri a small plastic figure from Patrick that he finds a letdown. Locked in the cupboard overnight, it is a living, breathing man by morning.
Q 11The magic cupboard in The Indian in the Cupboard began life as a small white cabinet for storing what?
Medicines
Medicines were what the old white cabinet once held before Omri got it as a present from one of his siblings. Only plastic figures wake up inside it; nothing made of other materials ever does.
Q 12On first meeting the giant Omri in The Indian in the Cupboard, what does Little Bear take the boy to be?
A god
A god is Little Bear's first guess, but he soon works out that Omri is just an ordinary, if enormous, boy. From then on the tiny man does most of the ordering about.
Q 13In The Indian in the Cupboard, what does Little Bear claim from the elderly chief who dies of shock on waking?
His headdress
Q 21The Indian in the Cupboard grew out of a shabby real cabinet from which room of its author's house?
The bathroom
The bathroom cabinet looked so tatty that one of the household wanted it thrown out. The author declared it magic instead and spun a tale about it on the spot.
Q 22Before The Indian in the Cupboard, its author was among the first women on British television doing which job?
News reporter
News reporter was the job she talked her way into at the newly launched ITN in 1955. Bored by the minor assignments she was handed, she began her first novel on the company's typewriters.
Q 23Where did the author of The Indian in the Cupboard spend most of the 1960s working as an English teacher?
His headdress passes to Little Bear, who reasons that he is the only one around to inherit the title of chief. The old man's death shakes Omri, who sees that the figures are real people.
Q 14In The Indian in the Cupboard, the soldier Tommy Atkins is summoned to treat Boone from which conflict?
World War I
World War I is where Tommy has come from, plucked out of the trenches where he tends the wounded. His name is old slang for any ordinary British soldier.
Q 15Which wife does Little Bear pick from an array of plastic figures near the end of The Indian in the Cupboard?
Bright Stars
Bright Stars is the woman Omri brings to life after Little Bear, newly made a chief, demands a bride. Some editions of the book call her Twin Stars.
Q 16At the novel's farewell party in The Indian in the Cupboard, Boone and Omri each become Little Bear's what?
Blood brother
Blood brother is the bond Little Bear seals with the cowboy he once shot, and with Omri too. Each boy then keeps his friend's plastic figure as a memento.
Q 17To whom does Omri hand the magic key at the end of The Indian in the Cupboard, to avoid temptation?
His mother
His mother gets the key back, as it had come down to her from her own grandmother. Without it Omri cannot summon his tiny friends on a whim.
Q 18In the Indian in the Cupboard books, Little Bear's people are busy battling which European soldiers?
The French
The French are the enemy who leave Little Bear badly wounded when Omri summons him again in the second book. The boys then try arming his village with modern guns, with tragic results.
Q 19The soldier Tommy Atkins decides his visit to Omri's giant room in The Indian in the Cupboard must be what?
A dream
A dream is all Tommy thinks it is, so he calmly patches up the wounded cowboy and goes back to his own time. The nurse summoned in the next book assumes she has simply dozed off on duty.
Q 20In the third Indian in the Cupboard book, what does Patrick accidentally drag back with him from Boone's own time?
A tornado
A tornado follows Patrick through the magic and rips apart Omri's bedroom, part of the house and the street outside. The key vanishes in the wreckage and turns up later in a hedge.
An Israeli kibbutz
An Israeli kibbutz was her base for about eight years after she followed a sculptor there and married him. All three of their children were born on it.
Q 24Two former heads of the American Indian Library Association faulted The Indian in the Cupboard chiefly for what?
Harmful stereotypes
Harmful stereotypes of Native Americans were the charge, and a school board in British Columbia briefly pulled the book from its libraries a year later. It had already won several young readers' awards.
Q 25Litefoot, Little Bear in the film The Indian in the Cupboard, was already known as what kind of performer?
A rapper
A rapper from the Cherokee Nation, Litefoot was spotted performing at a concert in Rome and had never acted before. He shaved his head for the part.
Q 26Which British comedian plays the tiny soldier Tommy Atkins in the 1995 film The Indian in the Cupboard?
Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan was already known in Britain for his spoof broadcaster Alan Partridge when he took the small part. He was later Oscar-nominated for co-scripting and producing Philomena.
Q 27In the film The Indian in the Cupboard, what danger lurks as Little Bear hunts under the floor for the key?
A pet rat
A pet rat is on the loose in the dark space beneath the boards as he searches. He makes it out with the key, and Omri can finally fetch help for the wounded Boone.
Q 28In the film The Indian in the Cupboard, Omri borrows a hatchet for Little Bear from which other toy figure?
A knight
A knight supplies the blade, one of the many small problems Omri solves to keep his guest equipped. He also helps Little Bear build a tiny dwelling of his own.
Q 29In the film The Indian in the Cupboard, what does the frightened Little Bear point at Omri on their first meeting?
A dagger
A dagger is the tiny man's only defence when the door opens on a boy many times his size. Omri locks the cupboard again and decides to keep what he has found a secret.
Q 30Little Bear's tattoos in the film The Indian in the Cupboard were drawn on Litefoot each day with what?
Permanent markers
Permanent markers did the job, in sessions that took up to four and a half hours each day. An adviser from Little Bear's own nation checked every detail, down to his leggings and moccasins.