FRISCO, TX — Every year, schools across the U.S. host Battle of the Books (BotB), a reading competition that tests students’ knowledge of selected books. The competition is open to students from third through 12th grade. Participants compete in teams, reading the assigned books for the year and answering questions about them.
This year’s book selection includes “Divine Rivals,” “A Pho Love Story,” “We Were Liars,” “Crumbs,” “#NotYourPrincess,” “And We Rise,” “Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares,” “Thieves Gambit,” “Uglies,” and “Nigeria Jones.” Teams prepare to answer rounds of trivia questions and provide the book title and author on competition day, which will be held on April 15.
On competition day, Frisco ISD students travel by bus to Reedy High School, missing the beginning of the first period and returning during third period. Centennial High School’s librarian Dr. Tammy Turner hosts a pizza lunch before students return to class. The competition features questions asked in various formats. One of the beginning rounds involves a Kahoot! with the final round mirrors the TV show “Jeopardy”. The winning team receives a trophy with one of the year’s books attached, along with the school’s name and year of victory. The team keeps the trophy until the next BotB.
Teams stay primarily independent, with the team members responsible for reading the books and coming together on competition day. They are free to decide how they want to prepare and communicate with each other conveniently to their schedule. Some teams quiz each other to prepare for the event.
It can be difficult for students to balance school and extracurricular activities, making it important to recognize students who motivate themselves to compete. Junior Aamina Abeer, who decided to compete last year, was mainly motivated by her friends and her passion for reading.
“I decided to compete because I love to read and I’m a very competitive person,” Abeer said. “More than that, me and the friends that would make up my team had been in reading slumps for a while and we thought this would be a good way to get back into reading again.”
The independent nature of BotB preparation can make teamwork challenging for members, as they all have different priorities and schedules, as was the case with Abeer’s team.
“Not everyone had the same level of motivation so there was definitely a gap in priority,” Abeer said. “A majority of the group members procrastinated reading their books until the very last second. I’d read my books pretty early, but a lot of people hadn’t even read their books when the team disbanded. I sort of took charge of the team as I’d been the one to organize the team and everything so I was just sending reminders and making sure we all knew which books we were supposed to read.”
Despite this, Abeer mentioned that working with her team was not a negative experience.
“All together it wasn’t so bad working with them. We were all friends and we all liked to read on varying levels so it wasn’t burdensome or anything,” she said.
Facing challenges and developing valuable skills are important throughout the preparation process. Competing requires team members to develop a comprehensive knowledge of their books, all while fostering critical personal and interpersonal skills that would benefit anyone outside of the competition. Turner outlines some of the skills she believes students grow in this process.
“Number 1: time management because they need to have all the books read by a certain deadline. [I’d include] collaboration and cooperation because they have to work with a team,” she said. “[Also], critical reading skills because they have to answer trivia on the books. And this is not really a skill, but the ability to have fun.”
Many grades are welcome to compete and a school can send as many teams as it wants, which can result in differences in how the competition is conducted.
“In middle school, I remember they were at like tables, and it was also trivia-style. I feel like high school is more competitive and there is an online component. There isn’t a Kahoot! and there are judges and the kids raise their hands to answer the questions. They also do it not during the school day,” Turner said.
Librarians are considering making changes to ensure fairness, including switching platforms from Kahoot! as it is prone to glitching if too many players join. Turner reflected on the adjustments made to last year’s competition that they want to continue this year.
“For fairness, we wanted to make sure we have judges. Teachers don’t participate but we have judges from the district school board and district office so that the judges are impartial and we changed the process for buzzing in during the final round so it was more fair. The people that got eliminated got to participate in a second bracket so they could continue playing.”
Ultimately, Turner encourages students to join as a way to have fun amid the stress of school.
“It’s not very often high schoolers get to leave school and be silly and answer trivia questions,” she said.
If you’re interested in participating in a future Battle of the Books, reach out to [email protected] for more information.
