Quiz Wandering Stars Tommy Orange

Wandering Stars: Full-Book Quiz

This quiz covers the entire novel Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (2024). Questions are divided into plot/sequence, character motivation, theme/symbol, and synthesis. Most are multiple choice; a few are short‑answer. The complete answer key follows.

Section 1: Plot & Sequence (8 questions)

  1. What historical event opens the prologue?
    A) The Trail of Tears
    B) The Sand Creek and Washita massacres
    C) The Battle of Little Bighorn
    D) The Wounded Knee Massacre

  2. After his escape attempt at Carlisle, Jude Star is injected with a drug and has a vision of:
    A) A buffalo hunt
    B) The Sand Creek Massacre
    C) His future son
    D) A peyote ceremony

  3. What does Charles Star do the morning before he robs the general store?
    A) Visits his father’s grave
    B) Writes in his journal
    C) Attends a peyote meeting
    D) Plays the trumpet

  4. Where does Richard Henry Pratt die?
    A) At Carlisle Indian School
    B) In a military hospital in San Francisco
    C) In his childhood home in Indiana
    D) On a train returning to Oklahoma

  5. What does Opal do immediately after her mother Vicky’s death?
    A) Calls her sister Jacquie
    B) Runs barefoot through Oakland, feeling she might fly
    C) Locks herself in her room
    D) Drives to Alcatraz

  6. What object does Lony use to symbolize his family’s unresolved weight in a dream?
    A) A drum
    B) A rubber‑band ball
    C) Dominoes
    D) A box

  7. At the Alcatraz sunrise ceremony, where does Lony disappear to?
    A) The prison cellblock
    B) The water tower
    C) The ferry dock
    D) The ceremonial fire

  8. What causes Orvil’s multi‑car accident in Chapter Twenty‑eight?
    A) He falls asleep at the wheel
    B) He is distracted by his phone after Opal calls
    C) A sudden fog on the bridge
    D) Another driver runs a red light

Section 2: Character Motivation (5 questions)

  1. Why does Jude Star choose the name “Jude” from the Bible? (short‑answer)

  2. Why does Charles Star decide to rob a general store?
    A) To fund his search for his father
    B) To buy laudanum and escape his failures
    C) To impress Opal
    D) To pay off a debt to Pratt

  3. Why does Opal hide her cancer diagnosis from Loother and Lony? (short‑answer)

  4. What motivates Lony to cut himself and bury the blood?
    A) A desire to feel physical pain
    B) Belief that Cheyenne people were once “cut people” who sacrificed blood for protection
    C) Imitation of a movie he saw
    D) Peer pressure from friends

  5. Why does the unnamed narrator of Chapter Twenty‑nine (Orvil’s former friend) eventually stop using drugs?
    A) He is arrested
    B) He enters rehab and builds a sober life through work, exercise, meetings, and music
    C) He moves away from Oakland
    D) His father forces him to stop

Section 3: Theme & Symbol (4 questions)

  1. What does the title “Wandering Stars” most directly refer to in the novel?
    A) The Greek meaning of “planet”
    B) The stars in the Cheyenne creation story
    C) A verse from the Bible that Jude reads (Jude 1:13)
    D) The name of a peyote song

  2. The bullet shard that remains in Orvil’s body is often called:
    A) The star shard
    B) The ghost fragment
    C) The iron seed
    D) The wandering piece

  3. What does the repeated image of the color blue symbolize for Charles Star?
    A) Sadness and the sea
    B) His father’s “blue smoke” and the spectrum of memory
    C) The sky and the national flag
    D) Blood and bruises

  4. What does the drum that Bear Shield builds represent for the narrator Star?
    A) A war signal
    B) A tool for reconnecting with lost emotions and healing
    C) A way to call the buffalo
    D) A symbol of Carlisle’s discipline

Section 4: Synthesis (3 questions)

  1. How does the novel connect the Carlisle Indian Industrial School with the contemporary opioid crisis?
    (short‑answer – 2–3 sentences)

  2. In what way does Pratt’s tombstone inscription (“Erected in loving memory by his students and other Indians”) create irony?

  3. Across multiple generations, what role does playing a musical instrument (trumpet, guitar, piano) play in the characters’ lives?
    (short‑answer – 2–3 sentences)

Answer Key & Explanations

  1. B – The prologue opens with the Sand Creek and Washita massacres, then the near‑extermination of buffalo (Ch. 2 – Prologue).

  2. B – Jude is injected by Pratt and has a vision of the Sand Creek Massacre (Ch. 5 – Life Masks).

  3. B – Charles writes in his journal the morning before the robbery (Ch. 13 – Everything Blue).

  4. B – Pratt dies in a military hospital in San Francisco facing a white wall (Ch. 12 – No Better Plan).

  5. B – Vicky’s youngest, Opal, runs out barefoot, feeling she might take flight (Ch. 15 – Victory!).

  6. C – Lony dreams of dominoes representing his family’s unresolved weight (Ch. 20 – Superblood).

  7. B – Lony climbs the water tower during the Alcatraz ceremony (Ch. 27 – Alcatraz).

  8. B – Orvil is distracted by his phone after Opal calls and causes a multi‑car accident (Ch. 31 – Doubled Up Inside).

  9. Answer: Jude picks “Jude” because the verse “They are clouds without rain … twice dead” in the book of Jude describes how he feels after being forced to take a new name (Ch. 5 – Life Masks).

  10. B – Charles robs the store to get money for laudanum; his addiction and sense of failure drive him (Ch. 13 – Everything Blue; Ch. 11 – Nape).

  11. Answer: Opal hides her diagnosis because she wants to protect her grandsons and avoid worrying them; she also feels a need for secrecy (Ch. 25 – Gray Area; Ch. 27 – Rave).

  12. B – Lony explains that Cheyenne people, called “cut people,” once cut themselves as sacrifice, and he hopes the buried blood will generate protective power (Ch. 33 – The Cut People).

  13. B – The narrator enters rehab, then builds a sober life through work, exercise, meditation, meetings, and music (Ch. 32 – Too Many Seasons).

  14. C – Jude reads “wandering stars” in Jude 1:13 and takes the surname Star (Ch. 5 – Life Masks).

  15. A – The bullet shard is described as a “star shard” (Ch. 31 – Doubled Up Inside).

  16. B – Charles associates blue with his father’s “blue smoke” and the spectrum of sky, vein, bruise, and song (Ch. 13 – Everything Blue).

  17. B – Playing the drum helps the narrator reconnect with lost emotions after becoming mute (Ch. 4 – Young Ghosts).

  18. Possible answer: Both institutions—Carlisle and the pharmaceutical industry—subject Native people to systematic harm. Carlisle forcibly assimilated children, while contemporary opioid addiction (exemplified by Orvil and Sean’s family) continues the pattern of erasing pain through substances, echoing the historical trauma. (See Ch. 1–2, Ch. 17–18, Ch. 22).

  19. Possible answer: Pratt spent his life trying to erase Indian identity, yet his tombstone is paid for by his former students and “other Indians,” implying an ironic mixture of respect and defiance. The inscription highlights the unresolved legacy of his assimilationist plan (Ch. 12 – No Better Plan).

  20. Possible answer: Music serves as a vehicle for emotional expression, resistance, and healing across generations: Charles’s trumpet rebellion at Carlisle, Orvil’s guitar as a path to sobriety, and the narrator’s piano minimalist compositions all show music as a survival tool against trauma and addiction (Ch. 11, Ch. 26–27, Ch. 33).