Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Chapters 1-4

Reading Check

1. He is a storyteller. (Chapter 1)

2. She stops singing. (Chapter 1)

3. Feathers (Chapter 2)

4. “The End” (Chapter 2)

5. Arabian Nights Plus One (Chapter 3)

6. Butt’s (Chapter 4)

Short Answer

1. In her note, Soraya indicates that she has left Rashid because his head is full of stories that are not true. When Rashid becomes angry, Haroun, too, comments that make-believe stories are pointless. After both his wife and son express skepticism about whether what he does has any value, Rashid finds himself unable to tell his stories. (Chapter 1)

2. When the men take Rashid and Haroun to the bus, they find that there are too many waiting passengers and there will not be room for them on any of the regular passenger buses. It is Haroun who meets the driver of the mail coach, Butt, and secures them seats on the mail coach. (Chapter 2)

3. Haroun comes to the conclusion that they are traveling through the Moody Land that his father has told him about in stories. But Rashid tells Haroun that this is not possible, because the Moody Land is just make-believe. (Chapter 3)

4. The Disconnector is a tool that Iff says Rashid used to subscribe to the Great Story Sea. This service allows Rashid to be more than just an ordinary storyteller. (Chapter 3)

5. Haroun drinks the Wishwater and wishes for his mother’s return and his father’s happiness. But just like every other time he has tried to concentrate since his mother left at eleven o’clock, after eleven minutes, he loses his focus. (Chapter 4)

6. Instead of experiencing the traditional story from the perspective of a hero, Haroun finds himself turning into a spider and being attacked. This causes Iff to reveal that he believes that the Ocean is being contaminated. (Chapter 4)

Chapters 5-8

Reading Check

1. Lilacs (Chapter 5)

2. The text of a story (Chapter 6)

3. She is female. (Chapter 6)

4. The Disconnecting tool (Chapter 7)

5. Mudra (Chapter 8)

6. The Old Zone/the Southern Polar Ocean (Chapter 8)

Short Answer

1. The land between Chup and Gup is called the Twilight Strip, because the light there is in between the always-light of Gup and always-dark of Chup. There is a supposedly unbreakable force in the Twilight Strip called Chattergy’s Wall. (Chapter 5)

2. He says that Princess Batcheat has been kidnapped by the Chupwalas. He believes she has been taken to the Ice Castle of Khattam-Shud, in Chup City. (Chapter 5)

3. Haroun is afraid that his father will be tortured. Iff is aghast at this idea and assures Haroun that at most, his father will be firmly scolded. (Chapter 6)

4. Butt argues for the importance of free speech, saying that the power of speech must be exercised in order to remain useful. For this reason, he thinks the Guppees should be allowed to say whatever they like. (Chapter 7)

5. Haroun sees that the man’s eyes are reversed from the structure that he is used to: Instead of whites surrounding black pupils, the man has black eyes surrounding white pupils. Haroun thinks that this eye structure probably explains why the Chupwalas live in the dark, as any light would blind them. (Chapter 7)

6. The shadows in Chup are recognized as equals to the people they are attached to. Still, some of the shadows have come to resent the people they are attached to and want to break free and live independently. (Chapter 8)

Chapters 9-12

Reading Check

1. A huge black ship (Chapter 9)

2. The Bite-a-Lite (Chapter 9)

3. A Plug for the Wellspring (Chapter 10)

4. Eleven minutes (Chapter 10)

5. Red (Chapter 11)

6. Kahani (Chapter 12)

Short Answer

1. Khattam-Shud is scrawny and seems slightly fuzzy, as if this might be his shadow self rather than his physical form. Haroun also thinks that Khattam-Shud looks a lot like Mr. Sengupta, the upstairs neighbor who ran away with Haroun’s mother. (Chapter 9)

2. Khattam-Shud uses the Poison Blenders to create an anti-story for each kind of story in the Ocean. These anti-stories cancel out whatever makes each story enjoyable for the audience. (Chapter 10)

3. The ambassador begins to juggle, claiming that Khattam-Shud ordered him to entertain them. But really, he is using this as a distraction while he gets a bomb out and adds it to the things he is juggling. (Chapter 11)

4. The Guppees trust one another and can fight a united battle. By contrast, the Chupwalas are disorganized and sometimes end up fighting their own shadows because they do not trust one another. (Chapter 11)

5. When Haroun arrives at the meeting, he sees that his friends are actually there already. He realizes that he is not in trouble at all, and that his friends have just been playing along with the Walrus’s joke. (Chapter 12)

6. When Haroun wakes, he finds an envelope that contains a note from the people he met during his adventure. (Chapter 12)