Study Questions
1. Who dies in Chapter 8?

2. What is the Rosetta Stone? Why does Scout think Mr. Avery gets his information from it?

3. Why do Jem and Scout feel guilty when Mr. Avery tells them that children who disobey parents, smoke cigarettes, and make war on each other can cause a change in the seasons?

4. Jem and Scout do not have enough snow to build a snow figure. What else do they use?

5. What does Scout ask Atticus after he returns from the Radley Place after Mrs. Radley died?

6. Jem is able to make a snow person without enough snow to build one. What is Atticus’s first reaction? His second reaction?

7. How is Miss Maudie able to take an interest in Jem and Scout when her house has just burned?

8. Before the children begin the snowman, what do they borrow from Miss Maudie?

9. Why does Jem not want Scout to walk in the snow or to eat it?

10. Why does Atticus take the children out of the house at 1:00 A.M.?

Answers
1. Mrs. Radley dies in Chapter 8.

2. The Rosetta Stone is a tablet of black basalt found in 1799 at Rosetta, Egypt. Because it has inscriptions in Greek and in ancient Egyptian characters, it is a key to deciphering the ancient Egyptian writing. Scout thinks Mr. Avery gets his outdated information from this stone.

3. Jem and Scout feel guilty because they were not perfect children and had at times disobeyed Atticus. Dill had rolled cigarettes at an earlier point in the book, so there is a possibility that Jem had smoked. The children had waged their own wars against others during the past year.

4. Scout and Jem combined the snow with mud from their own backyard.

5. When Atticus returns from the Radley Place, Scout asks if he had seen Arthur Radley.

6. Atticus praises Jem for the snow figure, but when he sees that it looks like Mr. Avery, he makes the children disguise it.

7. Miss Maudie is able to take an interest in Jem and Scout after her house burns because she values them more than her material possessions.

8. Before the children begin their snow person they borrow snow from Miss Maudie.

9. Jem does not want Scout to walk in the snow or eat it because he considers that a waste of the snow.

10. Miss Maudie’s house is on fire and Atticus thinks the children would be safer outside than in the house. He is afraid the fire might spread to their home.