Posts Tagged ‘contest’

Let the Battle begin

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

The new school year is set to start in less than two weeks. This year all three Decatur elementary schools are using the same list for Battle of the Books, with the winners from each school competing against each other in a final showdown.

Here is the reading list for 1st and 2nd graders if you want to give your little ones a head start.

1. A Mighty Fine Time Machine, by Suzanne Bloom

2. Charlie Anderson, by Barbara Abercrombie

3. The Uglified Ducky, by Willy Claflin

4. Thunder Cake, by Patricia Polacco

5. The Hinky Pink: An Old Tale, by Megan McDonald

6. Sea Turtles, by Gail Gibbons

7. One Potato, Two Potato, by Cynthia C. DeFelice
8. Way Out West On My Little Pony, by Jan Peck
9. Goin’ Someplace Special, by Pat McKissack

10. Seadogs: An Epic Ocean Operetta, by Lisa Wheeler

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Posted in Local events, Reading with kids | 2 Comments »

The battle was waged

Monday, May 31st, 2010

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The teams trained intensely, devoured stories and fine-tuned their war cries.

Boys and girls donned team colors and even talked a little trash.

This wasn’t a decision to be decided on the court, football field or track. It was about books.

Battle of the Books 2010 was a few weeks ago at Rann Elementary, and it was an intense competition. As a parent of a first grader, this was my first year to attend and have a child participating. If you’re not familiar with the contest, it’s a quiz bowl featuring questions about books.

There is a list of primary books for 1st and 2nd graders to read, and the 3rd and 4th graders read chapter books from the secondary list. Students who want to participate are placed on teams with members of all ages. The contest is divided into three parts. Only 1st and 2nd graders answer questions in the primary round, and 3rd and 4th in the secondary round. All of the students work together in the third round.

The students took the competition very seriously. When a team got an answer correct, they whooped and hollered, even jumped up and down. As an observer, you couldn’t help but smile at their exuberance and excitement.

It’s something we’re accustomed to seeing at sporting events, but it was especially delightful to see that same unabashed spirit at a reading quiz bowl.

Word is that next year each elementary school in Decatur will use the same list for a Battle of the Books competition, and the winners from each school will then compete against each other.

It’s sure to be fun, so get started on those reading lists this summer!

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Posted in Local events, Reading with kids | No Comments »

National Book Award finalists

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Three weeks ago I mentioned that the National Book Foundation was preparing to announce the finalists for the National Book Award in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature. And today … I realized that I never shared the list of finalists with you.

The nominees are:

FICTION

Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press)

Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (Random House)

Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W. W. Norton & Co.)

Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf)

Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

NONFICTION

David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt)

Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press)

T. J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Alfred A. Knopf)

POETRY

Rae Armantrout, Versed (Wesleyan University Press)

Ann Lauterbach, Or to Begin Again (Penguin Books)

Carl Phillips, Speak Low (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Open Interval (University of Pittsburgh Press)

Keith Waldrop, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (University of California Press)

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE

Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Henry Holt)

Phillip Hoose, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

David Small, Stitches (W. W. Norton & Co.)

Laini Taylor, Lips Touch: Three Times (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)

Rita Williams-Garcia, Jumped (HarperTeen/HarperCollins)

According to the National Book Foundation Web site, 193 publishers submitted 1,129 books for the 2009 National Book Awards. The total number of books by genre included fiction, 236; nonfiction, 481; poetry, 161; and young people’s literature, 251.

It couldn’t have been an easy task to narrow the submissions to the above finalists. The winners will be announced at a dinner and ceremony Nov. 18 in New York City.

If you’d like to get in on the action, Oxford University Press is hosting a contest to see who can pick the most NBA winners. Check out the contest here … and let me know if you win some loot!

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Posted in Best of the Best | 3 Comments »