The Swiss Family Robinson
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50 free The Swiss Family Robinson trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
More than two hundred years after it first appeared, The Swiss Family Robinson is still the model for every story about making a home from nothing. A storm, a wreck, a strange shore, and a mother, father and four boys who have to work out how to eat, build and protect themselves using whatever they can salvage and whatever they can learn. This quiz follows the book from the shipwreck to the day a sail finally appears. It asks about the family's homes, the animals they tame, the clever things they make and the characters themselves, then adds questions on the author, the famous 1960 film and the theme-park treehouse it inspired. The plot questions follow the well-known Kingston translation. It is written for young readers checking what they remember after finishing the book, for teachers and parents who want a ready-made comprehension check, and for anyone who grew up with the film. Every answer comes with a short explanation, and you can play on screen or print the questions for a class.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What do the Swiss Family Robinson join together to make a boat and leave the wreck?
Wooden tubs
Wooden tubs, eight of them, came from four big casks the father sawed in half. Young Jack had the idea, having sailed in a tub round the pond at home.
Q 02In The Swiss Family Robinson, what do the monkeys hurl down when the father throws stones up at them?
Coconuts
Coconuts rained down because monkeys copy whatever they see, a trick the father used to stop Fritz shooting one of the animals out of annoyance.
Q 03Which giant snake swallows Grizzle, the family's donkey, whole in The Swiss Family Robinson?
A boa constrictor
A boa constrictor spent a whole morning swallowing the donkey, then lay too bloated to move, which gave the father and Fritz their chance to shoot it.
Q 04Which 1960s TV series recast the Swiss Family Robinson as colonists stranded far from Earth?
Lost in Space
Lost in Space ran on CBS from 1965 and gave its castaways the surname Robinson. A comic called Space Family Robinson had tried the idea three years earlier.
Q 05When a British ship finally finds the Swiss Family Robinson, what do the parents choose to do?
Stay on the island
The parents stay on the island they have spent ten years turning into a home, while some of their sons sail away with the ship.
Q 06How does Fritz learn that a shipwrecked Englishwoman is stranded nearby in The Swiss Family Robinson?
A note tied to an albatross
A note tied to an albatross's leg, written on a scrap of rag, begged for rescue from 'the smoking rock'. Fritz had stunned the bird with a boat-hook by chance.
Q 07At Disneyland, the Swiss Family Treehouse reopened in 1999 rethemed around which Disney animated hero?
Tarzan
Tarzan took over the tree to tie in with the animated film released that year. The original attraction had opened in 1962, two years after the live-action movie.
Q 08Which sea creature seizes young Jack by the leg on the Swiss Family Robinson's first day ashore?
A lobster
A lobster caught Jack's leg in its claw in a rock pool until his father waded in. Jack later wanted to name the whole bay after it.
Q 09Which author's castaway hero lent his name to the title of The Swiss Family Robinson?
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe in 1719, and the later novel borrows only the name. Its family are castaways of that kind, with no surname ever given.
Q 10What name do the castaways give their island colony in the novel The Swiss Family Robinson?
New Switzerland
New Switzerland began as the father's joke when one of his sons bagged a kangaroo, and the name stuck for the whole settlement.
Q 11The Swiss Family Robinson is told as which kind of record, kept by the father since the shipwreck?
A journal
A journal of ten years of castaway life is handed to the eldest son on the family's last night together, with the wish that it be printed for other young readers.
Q 12In which language was the 1812 novel The Swiss Family Robinson first written and published?
German
German readers got the story first, under a title meaning simply 'The Swiss Robinson'. An English edition followed two years later.
Q 13Why is the family stranded alone on the wrecked ship in The Swiss Family Robinson?
The crew left in the boats
Q 21What useful job falls to Knips, the pet monkey Fritz adopts in The Swiss Family Robinson?
Testing if fruit is safe
Testing if fruit is safe falls to Knips because, as Fritz says, monkeys know by instinct which fruits are wholesome. He arrived as an orphan riding on a dog's back.
Q 22In The Swiss Family Robinson, which of the mother's possessions seems to supply whatever is needed?
Her bag
Her bag, as big as a pillow when she carried it off the wreck, yields thread, needles and seed whenever they are wanted, and the family come to call it magic.
Q 23Which Swiss Family Robinson mastiff swims ashore from the wreck beside his companion Juno?
Turk
The crew left in the boats without them, ignoring the father's shouts. The family survived because their cabin end of the ship was jammed between two rocks.
Q 14What do the Swiss Family Robinson stretch over poles to make their first shelter on the beach?
Sailcloth
Sailcloth from the wreck, pegged down and weighted with chests, made the tent that gave the family's first camp its name, Tentholm.
Q 15Which bird of prey appears in the name the Swiss Family Robinson give their home in the treetops?
A falcon
A falcon gives its name to Falconhurst, the house built thirty feet up a giant tree. The ending of the name echoes a word for a nest or eyrie.
Q 16In The Swiss Family Robinson, how does the father get the first line over a high branch?
With a bow and arrow
With a bow and arrow made from bamboo and reeds, he shot a thread over the bough and used it to haul up a rope ladder. The arrows were feathered from a flamingo.
Q 17In The Swiss Family Robinson, what does the family make by melting the berries of a bush the father spots?
Candles
Candles came from the greenish wax of the berries, so the mother no longer had to put her sewing away the moment the sun set.
Q 18In The Swiss Family Robinson, which predator does Fritz shoot as it closes on a swimming sheep?
A shark
A shark rolled on its side to seize the sheep and Fritz fired at its pale belly. The family later named the islet in their bay after the encounter.
Q 19Which bird do the Swiss Family Robinson capture on the plains and train to carry a rider?
An ostrich
An ostrich brought down by Jack was broken to the saddle, and it soon carried a rider between the family's two homes in almost no time.
Q 20Which enemies attack the family's clifftop fort in Disney's 1960 film Swiss Family Robinson?
Pirates
Pirates storm the cliff until a rescuing ship's cannon fire scatters them. Their captain was played by Sessue Hayakawa of The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Turk later marched out in a spiked coat cut from a porcupine's skin, armour that Jack made to protect him in fights with wild animals.
Q 24Which Swiss Family Robinson brother is the studious second son his father calls indolent?
Ernest
Ernest is the reader of the family, the one who can put a name to the strange plants and animals the others bring home.
Q 25Which wild animal does one of the boys raise as a hunting companion named Fangs in The Swiss Family Robinson?
A jackal
A jackal cub pulled from its den, Fangs at first ate everything he caught, but Jack kept training him until he laid a dozen quail at his master's feet.
Q 26Which bird does Fritz find as a chick among the rocks and train to hunt in The Swiss Family Robinson?
An eagle
An eagle taken from the shore as a chick was kept hooded like a hunting bird, and Fritz later flew it at grouse while he galloped behind.
Q 27Which powerful animal, named Storm, does Jack ride like a horse in The Swiss Family Robinson?
A buffalo
A buffalo calf lassoed by Jack on an expedition grew into Storm, led by a cord through his nose and strong enough to haul the family's cart.
Q 28Which sea animal, harpooned by Fritz, tows the Swiss Family Robinson's loaded raft toward the shore?
A turtle
A turtle asleep on the water woke with Fritz's harpoon in it and dragged the raft along like a tugboat. Fritz then claimed its shell for a water trough.
Q 29On which Caribbean island was Disney's 1960 film Swiss Family Robinson shot on location?
Tobago
Tobago won the job after the film-makers turned down Jamaica and Trinidad. The animals the script called for then had to be shipped in from around the world.
Q 30Which big cat does young Francis catch in a pit trap in Disney's 1960 film Swiss Family Robinson?
A tiger
A tiger that has menaced the family falls into one of the pits they dug for their defences, on the night before the holiday race.