Did you know that at schools across the country, classes are battling with each other? Not only are classes battling with each other, but they are duking it out over a bunch of books? Thats right, books! You might think that battling over books is strange but it brings joy to my heart to hear about kids fighting over books! To know that kids are enjoying reading so much that they would go to war over it is exciting to me! What can I say, I am a future librarian!
Now I can see that I might need to clarify what is going on. To anyone who has never heard of this before, it can seem strange to hear about kids battling over books. So in a nutshell, Battle of the Books is a reading incentive program that has been designed to motivate kids in grades 3-12 to read quality literature. Member schools are provided a list of the selected Battle Books for that year. The children are then given most of the school year to read all of th required books on the list. Each class will then select a certain number of students to represent them in a quiz show tournament, where classes in the same grade level will compete against each other. The winners of the tournament may move on to battle at district and national Battle of the Books tournaments.
I was privileged to take part in a 3rd grade Battle of the Books at a local elementary school where I volunteer. It was an amazing experience for both the children and the adults involved. Personally, it was so encouraging to see the excitement that was occurring over books! The experience definitely convinced me to make Battle of the Books part of my media specialist programming, and I hope that you will consider including it too! I promise that your kids will reap benefits from this program while having fun! Everyone who participates in this program walks away a winner!
To learn out more about the Battle of the Books go to http://www.battleofthebooks.org/index.html
