Battles rage on

JOEL DAVIDSON/Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - With thousands of literary facts on the tips of their tongues, approximately 150 Mat-Su kids waged battle at the third/fourth-grade and fifth/sixth-grade Battle of the Books competitions Saturday afternoon. Nearly 40 teams brandished their book knowledge for the event.

After five hours and hundreds of questions, Talkeetna Elementary stood atop the third/fourth-grade division and Butte Elementary took top honors for the fifth/sixth-grade division.

Mat-Su Battle of the Books co-coordinator Debbie Melton said several hundred people came out to watch the event and support the young academics.

"This is an important event because it keeps kids reading books," Melton said. "It's also a great way for kids to compete in an academic way that's not athletic based."

To prepare for the showdown, each team, consisting of three members and one alternate, read 15 books. Melton said it's not uncommon for the top teams to read the same 15 books two or three times each.

On Saturday, they were asked to recall the most detailed bits of information, including names, scene descriptions and literary characters' specific actions and phrases.

After months of reading, rereading and quizzing each other, the third/fourth-grade competitors could probably identify with one of the first-round questions, which asked, "In which book does a character read an entire set of encyclopedias?"

Question by question, teams from each grade level were whittled down to a final two teams, for the championship round.

Melton said the third/fourth-grade championship round was intense, with Talkeetna and Midnight Sun elementary schools locked in a tie after three rounds.

"They had to ask eight tie-breaker questions before one of them missed," Melton said. "It's pretty impressive how much detail these kids remember."

The books covered multiple genres and difficulty levels. Melton said the variety makes kids read different types of books that they might not otherwise look into.

The top three teams for the third/fourth-grade level were Talkeetna Elementary, Midnight Sun Charter and Pioneer Peak Elementary, respectively. At the fifth/sixth-grade level, Butte Elementary was followed by Midnight Sun Charter and Finger Lake Elementary for top honors.

The first-place team from each level will represent the Mat-Su Borough School District during the state championships in mid-February.

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.