Battle of the Books crowns local winners

Following a week of reading and comprehension, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District (MSBSD) has named this year’s winners, with a tie for first place between Cottonwood Creek Elementary and Fronteras Spanish Immersion School. Second Place went to Birchtree Charter School, and third place went to Twindly Bridge Charter School.

“What an incredible week of MSBSD Battle of the Books competitions…we are so proud of all our young readers. Congratulations to our top teams!” the school district said.

Battle of the Books is a statewide Alaskan reading motivation and comprehension program, sponsored by the Alaska Association of School Librarians. The goals of the program are to encourage and recognize students who enjoy reading, broaden reading interests, increase reading comprehension, and promote academic excellence.

Each year, lists of books are chosen and questions are written for all grade levels. The students read the books, discuss them, quiz each other on the contents, and then compete in teams of not more than three students to correctly answer questions based on the books in a "quiz show" format.

Questions begin with the words "In which book..." so that the answer will always be a title and author. Teams may participate at the local, district and state levels of competition - with the exception of K-2 students whose competition goes only through the district level.

The original idea for Battle of the Books came from a radio program sponsored by the Chicago Public Library in the early 1940's, when Joanne Kelly, a student participant in the radio show and later a school librarian in Urbana, Illinois reconstructed the radio show from memory for use in her library. Many years later another Chicago area school librarian, Roslyn Goodman living in Kodiak, Alaska, brought the Battle of the Books idea with her. She used it in Kodiak in the 1981-1982 school year and soon word of the program spread to Anchorage, Fairbanks, Valdez, Tok and Northway. By 1989, fifty-one Alaskan districts participating and several out-of-state districts requested Battle of the Books packets. Although the number of participating districts varies from year to year, overall interest in this exciting program remains high.

“A huge thank you to all the schools, students, coaches, and families who supported this year’s Battle of the Books. Your dedication to reading, teamwork, and critical thinking made this event a huge success!”

Up next for the top teams, they will have the opportunity to compete at the state level coming up February 24-27.