Junior High Students Begin Epic Book Battle
On May 5, students from Holmes and Grove Junior Highs dueled it out in the first ever Battle of the Books District Championship.
Battle of the Books is a collaborative reading program between Grove and Holmes Junior High Schools which seeks to motivate students to competitively read for fun and improve their reading habits. Librarians Judith Lopez and Heather Timmons worked together to select 10 books of various genres that were of high interest to students. Additional books were provided by Tammy Dabros-Wulf, school liaison at the Elk Grove Village Public Library, who also hosted the school’s final battle before the championship.
Participating students may choose to work individually or form a 2-3 person team. Starting in December, students begin to read all 10 titles. In April, the two schools hold separate battles to determine a building winner, who then competed for the district championship.
Each team is given a series of questions about the books they’ve read for the program and are awarded points for correct answers, with opportunities to steal points when opponents incorrectly answer. The team with the most points at the end of the competition wins.
It was a close battle with Daniel Alvarez-Salgado from Grove taking the win against Varsha Mullangi and Emily Perez from Holmes.
Plans are in place to host the Battle of the Books program again next year as the program was extremely successful.