Or as my husband likes to refer to it…. Battle of the Nerds.
Of course, it isn’t really a battle of nerds: it is a battle of readers. Teams of 3 to 5 people read 11 books and prepare for about two months or so and then compete in battles. The teams are asked questions about the books, and the answers are always the title and author of one of the 11 books.
Last Saturday was our local library’s elimination battle. It took place on the high school stage and 10 BOB teams participated. (It always throws my husband off when I refer to the competition as Bob. He wonders who the heck I am talking about.)
I coached one of those teams: Book Warriors, which includes 2 fourth-grade girls and 2 fifth-grade boys including my son, Justin.
And the teams met Avi!
The battle takes place in 3 rounds of 10 questions each. After the second round, the Book Warriors were in second place, and I was so impressed with everyone. These kids knew their books, and to be clear, I mean the kids that make up ALL of the teams.
It surprised me to realize that this is a FUN competition to watch even if you haven’t read the books. The answers have to be neat and spelled correctly. It just kills you to watch someone’s correct answer receive 0 points because of a missing letter.
After the third round, three teams moved on to the final competition. It is serious business: Houghton Lake teams will be battling against teams from Gaylord and Lake City. There will be a video performance.
And the Book Warriors? They are moving on! They did great!
But word has it that the competing schools are sending along some tough teams. The final battle is May 22, and we will be ready!
The books for this year includes the following:
The Lemonade War by Davies
The Wednesday Wars by Schmidt
Ragweed by Avi
My One Hundred Adventures by Horvath
Heartbeat by Creech
The Gollywhopper Games by Feldman
A Wrinkle in Time by L’Engle
Who was Eleanor Roosevelt? by Thompson
Sheep by Hobbs
No Talking by Clements
Leepike Ridge by Wilson
Another sad part — all of the kids worked really hard, and some were very disappointed their teams didn’t move on. It is hard seeing those tears, but it also shows how invested the kids get in the competition.
Sample questions:
In which book did a teacher ask a girl, “…how a child with parents as brilliant as yours are supposed to be, can be such a poor student”?
In which book is the main character known by five different names?
For more info on BOB, check out one of these websites:
www.battleofthebooks.com
www.battleofthebooks.org
