Wakeland students will compete in the district-wide Battle of the Books competition on Apr. 15 at Emerson High School, marking only the second time the school has fielded a team for this literary contest.
In this competition, students race to answer trivia questions about books instead of competing on athletic fields.
“Battle of the Books is where groups of readers from each high school get together, and they divide up the books or read all the books,” said Maddie Powell, the school librarian for Wakeland.
“And then we go to a central location and do trivia for all the books and see who the winner is. Wakeland has not won. I have high hopes for this year.”
The team meets twice a week in the library during lunch periods to discuss their reading progress and practice potential trivia questions. With 12 students on the team, they’ve developed a systematic approach to cover all required reading.
“We split up the books, so each team member is reading a certain book,” said Numa Singh, a freshman competing in the competition. “We can all like to give each other summaries and help each other with the questions about the books that we read.”
To succeed, the team must master each of the nine books to answer questions accurately. The reading list includes a diverse mixture of titles, from poems about the civil rights movement to magical journalists:
- Divine Rivals (Rebecca Ross)
- A Pho Love Story (Loan Le)
- We Were Liars (E. Lockhart)
- Crumbs (Danie Stirling)
- #NotYourPrincess (Lisa Charleyboy & Mary Beth Leatherdale)
- And We Rise (Erica Martin)
- Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares (Rachel Cohn and David Levithan)
- Thieves Gambit (Kayvion Lewis)
- Uglies (Scott Westerfeld)
The team has developed specific strategies to prepare for the competition. Each student creates detailed character charts and plot summaries for their assigned books, which they share with teammates. They also hold mock trivia sessions using questions from previous competitions to sharpen their recall skills.
Just like sports contests, some anxiousness comes with preparing for a competition.
“I think that we are going to do good,” Singh said. “I’m a little bit nervous, but I’m mostly excited rather than nervous.”
This year’s team will be aiming for victory. Even if it is a small victory compared to some of Wakeland’s other wins, a success would mean beating all the other high schools in FISD. Ultimately, the true victory lies in the teamwork and passion for literature that unites the Wakeland team.
If you’re interested in participating in a future Battle of the Books, reach out to [email protected] for more information.
