{"id":32552,"date":"2020-02-28T08:00:55","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T13:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=32552"},"modified":"2020-02-28T08:00:55","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T13:00:55","slug":"austin-teens-take-on-the-battle-of-the-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=32552","title":{"rendered":"Austin Kids Take on the Battle of the Books!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019ve been hearing about Austin ISD\u2019s epic Battle of the Books events for years from the middle school librarians we work with. I\u2019ve always been curious, but I didn\u2019t actually know what these literary competitions were like. For the past few years we\u2019ve been donating ARCs for all the participants, but this time we were invited to attend a big regional match as booksellers, and I jumped at the chance. Honestly, it was a blast!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Focused around books from the reigning Lone Star Reading List, the event pits teams of avid readers against each other in a battle of the wits to see which team reigns supreme. This particular middle school contest has been running for seven years, rotating between large district venues and schools willing to host. Often drawing teams from as far as Fort Worth and Waco, this year\u2019s match featured 18 teams from 14 Texas schools. Teams are limited to five kids plus an alternate, and organizer Elizabeth Switek from Austin Discovery School tells me that for her team (which was hilariously named \u201cWe\u2019re the Problem\u201d after all the parents who play the role of \u201cthe problem\u201d in the books they read), she has kids give speeches about why they’d be a good team member and that \u201cone year we even had a tie that required doing a spelling test since you must be able to spell the author’s last names perfectly as well as the title of the books [for the competition].\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

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Austin Discovery School students have been meeting for an hour and a half every Tuesday after school since late August. Members have to present two books to the team over the course of the fall, and they all snack on food from the books being presented as they go (which is a great sensory way to bone up on food-related trivia). They also run mock competitions weekly. That’s commitment!<\/p>\n\n\n

“In the First Rule of Punk<\/em>, what is Malu’s nickname for her mother?” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

“In Ivy Aberdeen’s<\/em> Letter to the World, <\/em>what poet does Ivy reference?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

In The Storm Runner<\/em>, what does Zane’s neighbor, Mr. Ortiz, give him to fight with?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

“Who said “I never leave the house with just one knife? Seriously, do I look like a one-knife kind of girl?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

I was told by the kids that this year\u2019s structure was new, using the program \u201cKahoot\u201d to run the Q&A digitally for the first time. I have to say, from the outside, it seemed like it all worked pretty seamlessly. Plus, the jazzy thinking music that played during every team consultation session is STILL in my head, a week later. But really, I came out of the event with so much respect for all these readers. They dove head first into these books, and I was stunned at how much they knew. <\/p>\n\n\n

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The questions at the event were really hard, actually, befitting a serious challenge for which teams have been preparing for months. They were so hard that I wondered how the teams tackled the task of studying for this epic exam\u2014after all, there are 20 books on the list. I\u2019m sure different teams tackle things differently, but Elizabeth Switek reports, \u201cWe had three kids on my team of 10 kids who read all the books. The others read anywhere from 5-15 of the books.  About a month ago they divided up the books to re-read and become an expert on. This is where it’s important that the members of the competition team are able to work as a team, respect other’s knowledge, and be able to compromise or acknowledge that they might be wrong.\u201d Speaking as a former member of a (somewhat fractious) academic competition team in high school, it sounds like a good strategy that emphasizes both accountability and teamwork to me.<\/p>\n\n\n