Eager Readers Clash In The

Battle Of The Books

By Martha Coville

It was standing room only at the fourth annual Battle of the Books at C.H. Booth library. Parents, siblings, and friends crowded together to watch 60 fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students compete in a literary trivia contest. Fathers and tall teenage brothers peered over shorter spectators lined up against the walls. Toddlers and grade school students sat cross legged on the floor.

In the old board room, seven of the 15 competing teams crowded around the broad square table. In the meeting room, eight other teams queued up behind a row of banquet tables, as though it was the head table at a wedding. In both rooms, the atmosphere was tense, the audience hushed, the rules strict.

Retired high school teachers Elizabeth Arneth and John Renjilian moderated the March 29 competition. “This year we went with a Jeopardy-style format,” said children’s librarian Alana Bennison. “That was one of the kids’ ideas.”

The students, in teams of four, scribbled furiously on note pads in response to the questions Ms Arneth or Mr Renjilian asked, then repeated slowly. Manila folders, standing upright on the tables, divided one team from another. No one team could eavesdrop on another, or sneak an illicit look at an answer. To submit their answers, the teams choose captains, who wrote them out on laminated sheets of 8½ by 11 paper, and held them up for the judges to see. Scores were recorded on a tall easel, and judging was strict. When one team botched the spelling of the Harry Potter character Kingsley Shacklebolt’s name, it was denied points for the question.

The Jeopardy-style contest meant the contest, though tough, was fair, since every team had to answer every question. It also meant that no single question determined the winner. Captains held their answers up together, and the moderators went around the room, awarding points for correct answers. St Rose School eighth grader David Tortora, whose team, the Paperbacks, won first place said, “There wasn’t any one question that led us to victory.” David’s teammates, captain Brandon Luxkaranayagam, Ajit Singh, and Reid Higham, are all students at Newtown Middle School.

‘A Trivia Contest’

Ms Bennison said that the Battle of the Books was not designed as a test of the comprehensive reading skills learned in school. “It’s totally different from a book discussion,” she said. “In a book discussion, you don’t focus on the details. Whereas here, it was all about the facts. That’s what made it a trivia contest.”

She also said that she and young adult librarian Margaret Brown collaborated with the students to create questions for the contest. “Actually, Ms Brown and I chose the four books from the Nutmeg Book Award List,” she said. Although the Nutmeg Awards are sponsored by the Connecticut Library Association and the Connecticut Association of Media Specialists, the books on the award list are chosen by Connecticut school children.

To their list of books from the Nutmeg Award List, which included The Lightening Thief, by Rick Riordan, Escaping the Giant Wave, by Peg Kehret, and The 7 Professors of the Far North, by John Fardell, Ms Bennison said, “We had to add Harry Potter.” J.K. Rowling’s last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows completed the list.

But every question asked during the Battle of the Books was submitted by one of the 60 participating students. “Kids are really into contests,” said Ms Bennison, “but they want everyone to have the same advantages. The Battle of the Books contest has been evolving over the years,” she said, and this year’s format struck her as fair to all participants.

During the elimination rounds, in the meeting room and old board room, Ms Bennison said that all students were asked the same questions. Four teams from each room were declared qualified to move on, so that the final round pitted eight teams against each other.

“We all thought that The 7 Professors would be the hardest,” said David, but Harry Potter ended up being harder.” David told The Bee that the huge cast of characters, and the plethora of place names in Harry Potter made for lots of trivia.

NMS sixth graders Elizabeth Charash, Ellen Moran, Aspen Kraushaar, and Kate Dunbar named themselves the Lightening Wave team. Knowing the answers to questions like, “What was the name of Percy’s boarding school in The Lightening Thief?” (Yancy Academy) and “Where did Percy’s school go when they took a field trip to New York City?” (Metropolitan Museum of Art) earned the Lightening Wave second place.

Questions from Harry Potter, which The Paperbacks found difficult, included, “Who wrote the letter Harry found in Grimauld Place?” (his mother, Lilly Potter) and “Whose lynx patronus warned everyone of the fall of ministry?” (Kingsley Shacklebolt.)

Ms Brown said she thought the battle made for a “wonderful day. It proved conclusively that kids still like to read,” she said.

David seemed to agree. “Right now, in school, we’re reading Frankenstein,” he said. “And I just finished A Separate Peace,” by John Knowles.