If you would like to participate in the 2009-2010 Middle School Battle of the Books please sign up in the library.
What is "Battle of the Books"?
Battle of the Books is a voluntary reading incentive program for students in grades 6-8. The purpose is simply to encourage students to read good books and have fun while reading books.
How Does a Student Participate?
A student participates by reading from the book list provided. Students may count "books" they have read before. However, they cannot count books that they have only seen on video or a movie. They must read the book. They should keep a summary so they can review this information before their "battle". Students will meet once a month, during lunch, in the library to discuss the books they are reading. Students will have a table reserved for them in the morning from 8:35am-8:50am. There will be a book blog available so students can discuss books.
Battle of the Books Description and Rules
Round 1
At the end of March, the students will take a written test over the books listed. The 4-5 students with the highest scores are chosen to practice for the "Battle". Practice times for the month of April will be determined after the final team is chosen.
Round 2
There will be a bracket composed of teams from the participating middle schools. These teams will compete at the chosen sites following the rules of competition as described below. The winners of each of these three brackets will be in the finals. Each team needs to bring a folded card to put in front of each team member that has their first name on it.
May 6th at 5:00 pm
Bracket 1 – Royal Springs, LTMS, & Hayes – (Royal Springs can not host.) LTMS will host.
Bracket 2 – Tates Creek & Southern – Tates Creek will host
Bracket 3 – Beaumont, Jessie Clark, & SCAPA
Bracket 4 – Bryan Station, Crawford, & Winburn
Round 3
Wednesday, May 12th at 5:30 pm at Norsworthy Auditorium
The winning team from each round will compete for first, second, third, and fourth place.
Competition Rules
The hosting school will need to provide one moderator (who reads the questions), one scorekeeper (can be a parent), and one timekeeper (can be a parent). The coaches will judge.
Questions will be read only once. The moderator will read the question and if stopped by the buzzer, the team will be given fifteen (15) seconds to answer. Team members may talk to each other while deciding the answer to give. However, only the captain may give the team's answer. If the team answers incorrectly and the question has not been completed, the moderator may repeat the question. The next team to attempt to answer will have five (5) seconds to do so. There will be only two buzzes per question. If the question is not answered correctly after two teams have tried, then the question is thrown out.
If a wrong answer is given, that team is assessed a penalty. They will not be allowed to answer the next question. If a team member other than the captain should give an answer, that answer is considered incorrect. No points will be given and the team will be penalized in the usual way.
Complete titles must be given as answers but omitting a, an, or the will be permitted. One point will be awarded for a correct title. A team can earn an extra point by giving the last name of the author if they have answered a title correctly.
The team that has the most points at the end of the questions will be declared the winner. If necessary, five (5) questions from the bonus list will be used as tiebreakers.
May 7th Bracket #1:
2009-20010 Battle of the Books' Book List
Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs
Fourteen-year-old Brady and his cousin Quinn love extreme sports, but nothing could prepare them for the aftermath of Brady's close encounter with a meteorite after it crashes into his Black Hills, South Dakota, bedroom.
Tiger by Jeff Stone
Five young warrior-monk brothers survive an insurrection and must use the ancient arts to avenge their Grandmaster.
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
After the death of the uncle who had been his guardian, fourteen-year-old Alex Rider is coerced to continue his uncle's dangerous work for Britain's intelligence agency, MI6.
Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages
While her father works on the Manhattan Project, eleven-year-old gadget lover and outcast Dewey Kerrigan lives in Los Alamos Camp, and becomes friends with Suze, another young girl who is shunned by her peers.
Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett
When seemingly unrelated and strange events start to happen and a precious Vermeerpainting disappears, eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder combine their talents to solve an
international art scandal.
Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan
Amy and Dan, members of the powerful Cahill family, try to uncover the thirty-nineclues which will reveal the secrets of their lineage and find out what really happened to
their parents.
Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-With" in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence.
Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata
A young soldier in Vietnam bonds with his bomb-sniffing dog.
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
When twelve-year-old Stephanie inherits her weird uncle's estate, she must join forces with Skulduggery Pleasant, a skeleton mage, to save the world from the Faceless Ones.
Into the Wild by Erin Hunter
Rusty, a bored house kitten, is apprenticed by the ThunderClan and must struggle to fit in when the group of feral cats is threatened by the enemy ShadowClan.
Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah
The author tells the story of her painful childhood in China where she lived until the age of fourteen with her father, stepmother, and siblings, all of whom considered her bad luck because her mother died shortly after giving birth to her.
Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix
When thirteen-year-olds Jonah and Chip, who are both adopted, learn they were discovered on a plane that appeared out of nowhere, full of babies with no adults on board, they realize that they have uncovered a mystery involving time travel and two opposing forces, each trying to repair the fabric of time.
Code Orange by Caroline B. Cooney
While conducting research for a school paper on smallpox, Mitty finds an envelope containing 100-year-old smallpox scabs and fears that he has infected himself and all of New York City.
Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan
Two boys who are best friends visit an illegal freak show, where an encounter with a vampire and a deadly spider forces them to make life-changing choices.
Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake
Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, uncomfortable because her skin is extremely dark, meets a new teacher with a birthmark on her face and makes some discoveries about how to love who she is and what she looks like.