APRIL 2, 2009 ISSUE
Hardin Park Book Team Vies for Regional Championship Friday
The Watauga County Battle of the Books 2008-2009 champions, pictured with their trophy, are (from left) Gabe Irwin, Devinne Snook, Madison Casey, Erika Walker, Sidney Wiswell, Celia Jackson and Lynde Wangler. Not pictured is Rebecca Hayes. Photo by Owen Gray
Are they nervous?
“You bet,” said Hardin Park 7th grader Sidney Wiswell, “but we’re going to win.”
Wiswell and her teammates, who recently won the Watauga County Battle of the Books tournament hosted at Mount Vernon Baptist Church on March 20, will head to Hickory on Friday to compete against other teams from their region in a quiz-bowl style competition. The winner of that competition will then head to the state championship in Greensboro on May 6.
Battle of the Books is an annual competition sponsored by the North Carolina School Library Media Association (NCSLMA). According to its website, www.ncslma.org, the competition began in North Carolina in 1981 in Onslow County. Michael Leonard, a former Children’s Librarian for the Onslow County Public Library, helped to sponsor the first North Carolina Battle of the Books competition that year. The competition was originally inspired by a radio program from Illinois that asked listeners a number of questions about books.
NCSLMA took over sponsorship of the competition in 2000 and hosted the first state championship in school year 2001-2002. The organization also created a competition for elementary grades. Originally the challenge was only open to the middle school level.
The competition breaks down like this: each year, the state Battle of the Books committee releases a list of 27 books. The list comes out in March. Students from schools all over the state then form teams of six, and together they take on the task of reading each one of these books. They have one year to read the entire list and prepare for the first competition, held at the county level. Only the winner from each county proceeds to the regional competition and then, if they come out on top again, to the state level.
This year’s competition saw many great teams from every school in the county. Most schools fielded more than one team. Hardin Park and Bethel took the top two spots, with third place going to Green Valley. In addition to Wiswell, the victorious team members from Hardin Park that will be traveling to Hickory are Erika Walker, Madison Casey, Rebecca Hayes, Devinne Snook and Lynde Wangler. Gabe Irwin and Celia Jackson, two members from Hardin Park’s Gold team, will be going as alternates.
All of the team members are in 7th grade except Snook, a 6th grader, and each one of them is new to the competition this year except for Hayes. This year is her second.
Some of the books they had to read this year included favorites of theirs such as Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, Tangerine by Edward Bloor and The Lighting Thief by Rick Riordan. The list also included classics such as Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
“We don’t begin really practicing until November,” said Hardin Park’s Media Specialist Candice Trexler. That allows the team to have time to read enough of the books so they can begin to answer practice questions prepared by their coaches. Hardin Park’s coaches for this year were Trexler and assistant Media Specialist Amy Hiatt. Besides preparing the practice questions for their team, a coach’s job also includes teaching the students the rules of the competition.
“The questions are really tough too, and pretty vague sometimes,” Snook said. “Like they could be in more than one of the books.” She remembers one question that asked about a contagious disability that a character had. They answered one book, but were counted wrong. The team was sure they were right, though. In situations like these, teams are allowed to challenge the question and be rewarded the points if they can back up their answer with evidence from the book. The girls took this route and were in fact rewarded the points.
And in this kind of competition, every point is crucial. Especially in years like this one, when Hardin Park scraped past Bethel to win by a mere two points. Having such tough rivals could turn out to be a good thing, though. At least they know they’re ready for the next level.
The Watauga County Elementary (or Junior) Battle of the Books will also be held on Friday, April 3, with the winner going on to a regional competition. There is, as of yet, no state championship for the Junior competition.
The Watauga Education Foundation provided the funding for both the middle school competition and the junior competition this year. The funding helped purchase books, t-shirts and lunches for the teams.
For more information on Battle of the Books and to see the reading lists for the 2009-2010 competitions, click to www.ncslma.org.
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