Why the Whales Came KS2 Quiz (With Answers)

Q1 of 45

Where is the novel set?

• On a small island called Bryher in the Scilly Isles off Cornwall
• On the island of St Mary's — the largest of the Scilly Isles
• On a fictional island off the Devon coast based on Lundy Island
• On the Isles of Scilly — a remote island community off the Cornish coast

Q2 of 45

What are the names of the two main child characters?

• Tom and Lucy — children of the island's lighthouse keeper
• Jack and Sarah — who discover the Birdman's secret together
• Billy and Rose — whose friendship forms the central relationship
• Gracie and Daniel — two children who befriend the mysterious Birdman

Q3 of 45

Who is the Birdman?

• The island's former ferryman who retired and now carves wooden birds and animals
• An old man called Zachary Woodcock who lives alone and carves birds — shunned by the islanders
• A former naval officer who became a recluse after losing his ship
• A birdwatcher from the mainland who visits the island each spring

Q4 of 45

Why do the islanders avoid the Birdman?

• Because he is thought to be a spy — he arrived from the sea during wartime
• Because he was involved in a fight that killed a man twenty years before the story
• Because he reported a man to the authorities for poaching and the community never forgave him
• Because he is rumoured to be connected to the curse of Samson island and to bring bad luck

Q5 of 45

What happened to the island of Samson that makes it feared?

• A great storm destroyed all the buildings and the islanders scattered to the mainland
• All its inhabitants drowned in a great storm — the island is said to be cursed ever since
• A disease killed all the islanders and their bones still lie in the grass of the abandoned houses
• The inhabitants were evacuated after their animals were taken and they could no longer survive — the island was abandoned

Q6 of 45

What does the Birdman give Gracie and Daniel to warn them?

• A map of the island with certain areas marked as forbidden
• Small carved figures with notes scratched into them warning them away from Samson
• Carved wooden birds — which are a warning never to go to Samson island
• Letters that he passes to them secretly, warning them of the danger

Q7 of 45

What does Gracie find on Samson island that reveals its history?

• The ruins of abandoned cottages, graves and old possessions of the islanders who once lived there
• The remains of the last narwhal — a great horned whale beached on the shore
• A narwhal horn that the islanders had hidden as a talisman against bad luck
• A ship's log from the vessel that caused the curse generations before

Q8 of 45

What creature comes to Bryher's shore near the novel's end?

• A pod of sperm whales — the largest that anyone on the islands can remember seeing
• A stranded blue whale — the largest animal ever seen on the island's shore
• A pod of narwhals, which the Birdman knows is a sign connected to Samson's history
• A great narwhal whose arrival the Birdman says is connected to the return of the curse

Q9 of 45

What does the Birdman say must be done to prevent the curse coming to Bryher?

• A ceremony must be performed at the Samson graveyard at midnight
• The narwhals must be guided back to sea before they die on the beach
• The islanders must apologise at the Samson shore for driving away its last inhabitants
• The narwhal horn that was taken from Samson must be returned to the sea

Q10 of 45

What is the Birdman's real name that is eventually revealed?

• Jonah — which is why the islanders believe he brings bad luck wherever he goes
• Old Will — he was the ferryman who refused to carry the last Samson family to the mainland
• Zachary Woodcock — but the islanders have always known this and used it to identify him
• Zachariah — he was the child who survived when all the other Samson islanders were taken

Q11 of 45

When is the novel set?

• In the 1920s, after the First World War has ended and the soldiers have returned
• During the Second World War — enemy submarines have been spotted near the islands
• In the Victorian era — before the islands had any regular contact with the mainland
• During the First World War — Gracie's father is away fighting and there is fear on the island

Q12 of 45

What does Daniel do that breaks the unwritten rule about the Birdman?

• He speaks to the Birdman on the path — the first islander to do so in years
• He climbs the fence to the Birdman's cottage to retrieve a lost ball
• He secretly visits the Birdman's cottage and is discovered by Gracie
• He helps the Birdman when he falls — an act of kindness that begins their friendship

Q13 of 45

How does the islanders' attitude to the Birdman change by the end?

• They make him the island's elder — his knowledge is now considered valuable rather than dangerous
• It does not change — the islanders remain suspicious even after the whales are saved
• They accept him as one of their own once he helps save the narwhals and lifts the fear of the curse
• They are grateful but still keep their distance — fear overcomes gratitude

Q14 of 45

What skill does the Birdman share with the children?

• Identifying every seabird by its flight and song
• Reading the stars to navigate between the islands in the dark
• Carving birds and animals from driftwood with extraordinary skill and detail
• Reading the tides and weather to know when the sea is safe

Q15 of 45

How does Gracie's father's absence at war affect the mood of the novel?

• It has little effect — the island community provides all the security the family needs
• It creates a shadow of anxiety over Gracie's life — his absence and the possibility he will not return gives the story emotional weight beyond its adventure plot
• It creates conflict between Gracie and her mother who cope with fear differently
• It motivates Gracie to be brave and take risks she would otherwise avoid

Q16 of 45

What does the island of Samson represent in the novel's moral landscape?

• A symbol of death — the island is associated with the dead and Morpurgo uses it to explore children's understanding of mortality
• A piece of pure adventure setting with no thematic significance
• A place of physical danger — the island's geography makes it dangerous to visit
• A warning from history — what happened on Samson (abandonment, the curse, the silencing of its story) is what Bryher risks if the community closes itself off from truth and from outsiders like the Birdman

Q17 of 45

How does the Birdman's isolation comment on what happens to communities that shun those they fear?

• The community is presented sympathetically — their fear of the Birdman has reasonable historical roots
• It is presented as natural — island communities are always suspicious of unusual individuals
• It shows that isolation is chosen — the Birdman prefers solitude and the community's attitude suits him
• By showing a man made harmless by community fear into a genuine outsider, Morpurgo suggests that superstition damages communities — the Birdman's knowledge could have helped them for years if they had not been afraid

Q18 of 45

How does the wartime setting shape the novel's atmosphere without dominating its plot?

• The war is barely present — Morpurgo uses it only to fix the period without psychological impact
• The war is the novel's main subject — everything else is secondary to the anxiety about fathers in battle
• The war motivates the children's adventure — with adults distracted by war, children have more freedom
• The war creates a background hum of anxiety and absence that intensifies the children's other fears — the Birdman, Samson, the curse — making the whole island feel precarious, which is exactly the emotional texture Morpurgo wants

Q19 of 45

What does the novel suggest about the relationship between legend, superstition and truth?

• That legend and superstition often contain historical truth that has been distorted over time — the curse of Samson is not magic but memory, and understanding it requires looking beneath the fear to the human story underneath
• That legend and truth are incompatible — the story debunks island superstitions completely
• That the Birdman's knowledge proves supernatural forces are real on the islands
• That superstition is always harmful and the novel is an argument for rational thinking

Q20 of 45

How does Morpurgo present the relationship between humans and the natural world in the novel?

• As adversarial — the sea and the animals are threats that the island community must resist
• As mysterious — the natural world is beyond human understanding and the novel celebrates this mystery
• As purely practical — the sea provides food and the animals are resources without deeper significance
• As one of responsibility — the islanders' treatment of the narwhals is a moral test, and passing it by returning the horn restores the relationship between the human community and the natural world it depends on

Q21 of 45

How does the Birdman's driftwood carving function as a symbol in the novel?

• The carvings are evidence of Birdman's skill — they establish him as a craftsman worth respecting
• The carvings are decorative — he makes them to pass the time and they have no symbolic function
• The birds represent the Birdman's own state — trapped on the island as birds are in cages
• The carvings are acts of preservation — Birdman shapes the island's natural materials into permanent forms, expressing a relationship with the natural world that the islanders who fear him cannot see; to carve a bird is to say it matters, and this is exactly the novel's ecological argument

Q22 of 45

How does the novel present the relationship between fear and community?

• Fear is individual — each islander's fear is personal and unrelated to community dynamics
• Fear is presented as rational — the islanders have good reasons to be afraid
• Fear corrodes community — the islanders' fear of the Birdman has isolated them from knowledge they need, and their fear of Samson has prevented them from understanding their own history; the novel argues that fear-based community is fragile and that genuine community requires facing what frightens it
• Fear strengthens communities — shared fear of the Birdman and Samson unites the islanders

Q23 of 45

What does the children's disobedience — visiting Samson and the Birdman — reveal about the moral structure of the novel?

• Disobedience is presented as natural in children — neither condemned nor endorsed
• The children's rule-breaking is a plot device without moral significance
• The children's disobedience is morally necessary — the adults' rules are based on fear and superstition, and only by breaking them can the truth be found; the novel endorses a form of principled disobedience that acts from care rather than selfishness
• Disobedience is punished — the children suffer consequences for breaking rules

Q24 of 45

How does the war's presence in the background of the novel comment on the islanders' more local fears?

• The war and local fears are entirely separate — the novel keeps them in different compartments
• The war makes the local fears more rational — wartime anxiety amplifies existing superstitions
• The war provides a scale against which the islanders' superstitions can be measured — while men are dying in France, the island is paralysed by a century-old story about a curse; the juxtaposition gently questions whether the island's internal fears are proportionate, without dismissing them
• The war is used to date the novel precisely without thematic relevance to the island's story

Q25 of 45

Why are the children initially warned to stay away from the Birdman?

• He keeps dangerous animals that have injured people
• The islanders believe he is cursed and that anyone who befriends him will bring bad luck
• He is suspected of being a German spy
• He is violent and has attacked children before

Q26 of 45

What skill does the Birdman have that impresses Gracie and Daniel?

• He can carve beautiful birds and write in a distinctive and striking way
• He navigates by stars alone and never uses a compass
• He can predict the weather with remarkable accuracy
• He speaks to the whales and they respond to his calls

Q27 of 45

What historical event begins to affect the islanders as the story progresses?

• A plague of rats that destroys the winter harvest
• The First World War, which takes men away and creates hardship on the islands
• A government order to evacuate the islands permanently
• A devastating hurricane that destroys much of the island's food supply

Q28 of 45

What do the children discover about the island of Samson?

• It contains buried treasure from a shipwreck that the Birdman has been guarding
• It was once inhabited but the population died out after a narwhal was killed, fulfilling an old curse
• The Germans used it as a secret base before the war began
• It is sacred to the whales and should never be set foot on

Q29 of 45

How does the Birdman help when a pod of whales beaches on the island?

• He paddles out to sea to call more whales in, believing safety lies in numbers
• He refuses to help because he believes the whales have come to die and should be left alone
• He leads the effort to keep the whales alive and return them to the sea, believing it will lift the curse
• He warns the islanders to harvest the whales quickly before they die and go to waste

Q30 of 45

What is the significance of the narwhal horn in the story?

• It is connected to the curse on Samson, and returning it becomes part of the attempt to break that curse
• The Birdman uses it as a musical instrument to communicate with sea creatures
• It is a valuable trade item that could pay the island's debts to the mainland
• It is a fake believed to be a unicorn horn, representing the islanders' superstition

Q31 of 45

How does the novel use childhood friendship as a vehicle for moral discovery?

• Childhood friendship is a structural convenience — Gracie and Daniel need to be paired for practical plot reasons
• Gracie and Daniel's friendship allows Morpurgo to show moral learning in process — neither child arrives at understanding alone, and their debates about the Birdman, Samson and the right thing to do model the way ethical understanding develops through relationship and dialogue
• The friendship represents Morpurgo's belief that girls and boys think differently about moral problems
• The friendship is the novel's central romance — Morpurgo is laying the groundwork for an adult love story

Q32 of 45

What does the novel reveal about Morpurgo's approach to the relationship between past and present in island communities?

• That island communities are ahistorical — they live in the present without meaningful connection to the past
• That in small communities the past is never past — Samson's history and the Birdman's origins are still shaping Bryher's present, and Morpurgo suggests that facing rather than avoiding history is the only way to free a community from its grip
• That island communities are uniquely good at preserving history and the mainland could learn from them
• That the past is accessible only through the oldest community members, which is why the Birdman is valuable

Q33 of 45

How does Why the Whales Came fit into Morpurgo's wider concern with endangered and misunderstood creatures?

• The narwhals extend Morpurgo's persistent argument that humans have a responsibility to creatures they share the world with — the narwhals' stranding is both an ecological emergency and a moral test, connecting the children's story to a global concern with animal welfare
• The animal element is entirely mythological — narwhals function as fantasy creatures in the novel rather than real animals
• This novel is an outlier — Morpurgo's animal concern is more visible in War Horse and The Butterfly Lion
• Morpurgo uses the narwhals to introduce readers to marine conservation, making the novel primarily educational

Q34 of 45

How does the novel use its island setting to explore the relationship between isolation and knowledge?

• The island's isolation both preserves and distorts knowledge — Birdman's understanding of the island's history is preserved by isolation, but the islanders' fear is also a product of isolation; the novel suggests that isolated communities develop their own forms of knowledge and ignorance, and that contact with the wider world (represented by Gracie's curiosity and the children's friendship with Birdman) is necessary to distinguish between them
• Knowledge comes from the mainland — the island is ignorant by nature
• Isolation is positive — it protects the island from the corruptions of the modern world
• Island isolation is presented as purely negative — it produces ignorance and superstition

Q35 of 45

What does the novel ultimately suggest about the relationship between respecting tradition and questioning it?

• The novel is ambivalent about tradition — it endorses the islanders' caution while also criticising it
• Traditions should always be questioned — the novel is a straightforward argument for rational thinking
• The novel distinguishes between tradition as living memory (the Birdman's knowledge of Samson's history) and tradition as fossilised fear (the ban on speaking to him); respecting the first requires questioning the second — the children's courage is to take tradition seriously enough to investigate it rather than simply inheriting the fear
• Traditions should always be respected — the novel endorses the islanders' inherited caution

Q36 of 45

How does Why the Whales Came fit into Morpurgo's larger body of work about children who must act when adults will not?

• Gracie and Daniel act where the adults are paralysed by fear — they visit the Birdman, discover Samson's history and ultimately participate in saving the narwhals; this pattern of children's action as the key that unlocks adult paralysis recurs throughout Morpurgo's work and reflects his belief that children's moral clarity is often more direct and reliable than adult political calculation
• The adults in the novel are not paralysed — the children's action is supplementary to adult problem-solving
• The theme is not present — Morpurgo's novels generally show adults solving children's problems
• The theme is unique to this novel — other Morpurgo novels do not explore children acting independently

Q37 of 45

How does Morpurgo use the legend of the cursed island of Samson to explore the relationship between superstition and truth?

• The novel ultimately reveals that all superstitions are false inventions used to control communities
• Morpurgo uses the legend only as background atmosphere with no deeper significance
• The legend contains a genuine ecological and moral truth about respecting nature, even if its supernatural framing is questioned
• The curse is presented as objectively real and is never questioned by any character

Q38 of 45

The Birdman Zach is ostracised because of fear. What does his characterisation suggest about the nature of community judgment?

• That the islanders' cruelty towards Zach is typical of rural, uneducated communities
• That communities are always right to be cautious about those who refuse to conform
• That communities often scapegoat individuals whose difference they cannot understand, mistaking eccentricity for danger
• That Zach's isolation was self-chosen and reflects his misanthropic nature

Q39 of 45

What does the relationship between Gracie and the Birdman represent thematically?

• A dangerous friendship that adults are right to discourage
• Gracie's rebellion against her parents, which is presented as ultimately misguided
• The capacity of children to see beyond social prejudice to the humanity in those the adult world has cast aside
• The way outsiders use children's trust to gain acceptance in hostile communities

Q40 of 45

The island setting functions as more than backdrop — what does the Scilly Isles' isolation contribute to the novel's themes?

• It represents Britain's imperial outposts and the colonial exploitation of peripheral communities
• Isolation simply provides a plausible reason for the islanders' ignorance and fear
• It creates a closed world where the moral consequences of past actions (the curse) bear directly on the living community
• It is chosen mainly for its picturesque qualities and historical interest

Q41 of 45

How does the First World War's presence in the background of the story reinforce Morpurgo's themes?

• The war's presence ironises the islanders' concern with an ancient curse rather than modern threats
• Morpurgo uses the war to suggest that patriotism should override local superstition
• The war is merely a historical detail providing period authenticity with no thematic function
• The war represents human violence against each other, paralleling the violence against nature (the narwhal) that cursed Samson

Q42 of 45

The novel ends with a sense of healing. What does Morpurgo suggest about how communities can break cycles of harm?

• Healing is impossible — the novel ends on a note of continuing uncertainty
• Through acknowledgment of past wrongs, acts of restitution, and the courage of individuals willing to question inherited fears
• Through strong authoritative leadership that overrides community superstition by force
• Through modernisation and education that replaces tradition entirely

Q43 of 45

How does Morpurgo present the whales themselves within the moral framework of the story?

• As symbols of German military power during the First World War
• As dangerous animals that the islanders are right to fear and potentially harvest
• As impressive natural spectacles that exist to create dramatic set pieces in the narrative
• As sentient beings whose wellbeing is morally significant and whose fate mirrors the community's own spiritual state

Q44 of 45

What is the significance of the children — rather than adults — being the ones to act against the curse?

• It is a narrative convenience rather than a deliberate thematic choice
• Children are not yet trapped by the received prejudices and fears that prevent adults from questioning tradition
• It emphasises that the adult characters have failed in their duty of care
• Morpurgo implies that children are reckless and their action brings unforeseen consequences

Q45 of 45

How does Why the Whales Came fit into Morpurgo's broader body of work in terms of its central concern?

• Like War Horse and Kensuke's Kingdom, it explores the relationship between humans and the natural world, and the cost of failing to respect that relationship
• It is primarily a historical novel with no ecological or environmental dimension
• It is unique in Morpurgo's work in focusing on supernatural rather than historical themes
• Unlike his other novels, it ends without hope, suggesting human damage to nature is irreversible