Battle of the Books

Battle of the Books tests knowledge of award winning books; Prospect Point team wins title

District elementary school students gathered at Sharpstein Elementary last week for the annual Battle of the Books competition. A team from each of the district’s five elementary schools competed to show their knowledge of the 20 Washington State Library’s Children’s Choice Picture Book Award nominees. Students were selected to compete on their school team based on results from the individual school’s battles.

Teams were quizzed on genre, literary elements, author’s purpose, and text references from each of these books. A practice round was played with a sixth team made up of principals from each elementary school competing. The final battle went into a tie breaker between Edison Elementary and Prospect Point Elementary, with the team from Prospect Point emerging victorious. Edison Elementary placed second, and Green Park took third place. All participants were rewarded with a bag full of prizes they shopped for at the Battle of the Books prize “store.”

Battle of the Books first appeared on a Chicago radio program in the 1930's. Since then it has expanded to Battle of the Books competitions taking place all across the country with each state selecting their own books to learn about.