Children's Books discussion

Having just made it through another Oregon Battle of the Books season with my son, I thought this might make an interesting thread. OBOB is a reading incentive program organized by librarians in Oregon, but similar programs exist in nearly every state.

The programs usually work something like this:

-a list of roughly 15 books is set, usually in May of the preceding school year, for each age group (in Oregon, the age groups are 3rd-5th, 6th-8th, 9th-12th grade).

-students form teams of 4-5 kids and compete at the school level during the school year, with winners advancing to regional and then state competitions in early spring.

-the competitions themselves require teams to score points by answering a series of questions from any of the books on the list for their age group. For example: "In which book did..." or "What was the last word in the book..." (I am not making that one up!)

I have a link to the main page for OBOB below (keep in mind they are librarians, not web designers). Past lists are available and new lists should be out in a month. One great thing about these lists is that they contain a diverse selection of books that are readily available in paperback or in libraries. I thought people could add links to lists from their respective states/areas and it might make another nice resource for folks heading to the library or book store.

Another issue is how people feel about the idea of making a competition out of reading. I confess that I was initially very skeptical. But there is a lot of enthusiasm for the program among students at our elementary school, especially among reluctant readers. For the avid readers, it offers a chance to get some public recognition (and, in the later rounds, they really do manage to stun their teachers and parents with their ability to answer some very difficult questions). So my experience with the program has been very positive, but I'd be curious how others view these programs.

Here's the link to Oregon Battle of the Books:
http://oboblsta.pbworks.com/w/page/56...

I would have loved something like that when I was in school. And I love that both reluctant readers and avid readers seem to be benefitting. I can also see how for the upper levels, it can prepare students for college/university (I competed at Reach for the Top in high school, which was a Canadian type of jeopardy-like quiz show for students, but this Battle of the Books would have been even more up my alley).

I would have loved to participate in this, exactly as you say, to get recognition & respect for doing something I loved that was otherwise isolating.

In general I'm a bigger fan of internal motivation than of external rewards, but I think that competitions like this have their place. Just so long as people don't get carried away and make it so important that there are temptations to cheat or too much pressure.

I will be looking at the link for sure. Thanks for sharing!

It is a truly great program and recognition for something other then the usual athletics.
We have it in our school and it's a big hit. Our all boy team tied for first for 3rd grade and loved it! They all read most of the 12 books and were so excited at their accomplishment! I think more school systems should endorse it. (although I think its through PTA and I'd love if the switch the books up between the years but that's semantics :)

That sounds like a great program. The closest thing to that here in New Zealand is the Kids' Lit Quiz, which all my kids took part in. It's similar in that the kids answer questions about children's books but there isn't a reading list so the kids have to have been great readers all their lives as the questions can be about anything. It was started in NZ, but is now international with teams from NZ, UK, South Africa, Canada, Australia and USA all competing in a World Championship. (I hadn't realised that the US was part of it too). http://www.kidslitquiz.com/

Wow. I attempted the practice questions for 2006 - and got about 1/2 of them. I'm so embarrassed.

Cheryl...the questions are VERY hard!!! I had read (or listened to) all the books this year and I knew only 75% of the answers! I was so impressed with our team that they knew them and it's 5 pts for the book and 2 pts for the author (and that's where the strategy and stealing of points works to your favor). It was truly awesome to see how much all the kids retained!

Such a neat competition. Thanks for sharing!

I started a Battle of the Book program at the first library I worked at back in the late 1980's in Illinois. They did a little different take on it: Many of the questions were detailed and required answers other than the name of the book, though the author's name earned a point. The most recent library I worked at also has Battle of the Books in cooperation with a neighboring library: Here is the neighboring library's link with the upcoming booklist.

http://www.webrary.org/kids/jbibbob4-...

I just did the 2007 questions - even harder. Mostly character names, not the title of the book.

Fun quizes! My school library has asked trivia questions at the end of the year before....not a real "battle." It would be fun to do something like that this year...but I'm running out of time...I have a scavenger hunt during our bookfair in which the kids have to find the answers to questions by reading the blurbs or titles, etc. of the books. They seem to enjoy it.

I think a scavenger hunt sounds like even more fun - and a better learning opportunity because anyone can participate, whereas the BotB is for kids who have been reading & studying.

Of course the events are different - the scavenger hunt would be a one-off each time within a single location or event, whereas the cool thing about BotB is that it resembles sports' competitions, against other teams, advancing to finals, etc.

As I type I'm becoming more & more enamored with the scavenger hunt idea.

I'd love to see more comments on this thread. Does your school, or state, or country have any significant competitions for young readers? In your opinion, are they well-run? Do you have favorite aspects, or improvements to suggest? Are they effective? If so, for both avid and reluctant readers?

Here in Queensland Australia we run a big Readers Cup competition, statewide. It is run by the Children's Book Council of Australia. Teams of 4 or 5 children answer questions on set books they have read. Details on their website.

Very good for avid readers

Oh, Mia, that sounds wonderful!

Cheryl wrote: "Oh, Mia, that sounds wonderful!"

And something I would have enjoyed as a child.

Here in Florida we have SSYRA - Sunshine State Young Readers Award.

Just like Oregon's program, there is a selection of books by grade level, there's a Jr's for before 3rd grade, than 3-5, 6-8 and teen. Locally though, only 3-5 is really supported. It really depends on the school media specialist to sign up and run the program and it seems a bunch just don't bother. I think it's really a shame because the 3-5th books get excellent support and the kids have a chance to win a special meal for their whole class if they read all of the books. (At least, that's what the school near us does, that may not be the standard prize.)

I'm at a public library and we order all the SSYRA books even though the other grades aren't really supported at the local schools. We're trying to see if there's a way for us to sort of participate by at least giving out the brag tags for the other grades to motivate kids to read the other books. The brag tags are just stinking adorable with some of the book cover art, the kind of thing I want to collect even as an adult.

It looks like anyone can order the brag tags, but, it doesn't look like the kids can vote in the program for a book without being in a school program for it.

I will say that the competition isn't really about who reads the most books, the competition is between the books. If you read them all, your whole class gets a meal, not just the person who did it.

The only program drawbacks that I see are that we have a bunch of schools that do not participate and options for public libraries to participate are very limited.

Ok, I just downloaded the list from SSYRA. As if I don't have enough to read. And then there's the other years' lists, too. Thanks!

I am also in Florida, and at our school students who have read and passed the Accelerated Reader test on the greatest number of SSYRA books compete in the Battle of the Books. There is a champion class from each of 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. Our librarian does a nice job of stirring up the excitement and having a fun game show format contest. This is just a school wide event, but a fun one.

Here they have summer reading programs where you can win prizes. For children it's if they read so many books and adults it's a random draw of submitted book reviews. The local libraries also have read to a therapy dog program. Reluctant readers can read out loud and pet an adorable furry companion who doesn't judge them if they make mistakes or skip words they don't know. My niece said she signed up to read to a dog but I don't know if she ever did it. I always forget to ask her. She's already "almost 10" (9 3/4) and a much better reader than she thinks she is.

We don't have a Battle of the Books in the public library in San Antonio; I don't know about the schools. Some of the schools have the Accelerated reader program where children can earn rewards. Our library system has an annual summer reading program where each child who reads (or listens to, for the younger ones) 8 books earns a free book. So the children don't really compete against each other. Texas also has the annual Texas Bluebonnet Award. Again, the children don't compete against each other, but the students who read 5 books from the list of 20 earn the right to vote for their favorite book on the list.

Beverly wrote: "We don't have a Battle of the Books in the public library in San Antonio.... Again, the children don't compete against each other, but the students who read 5 books from the list of 20 earn the right to vote for their favorite book on the list. ...."

I think I'd have liked that even more than a competition, introvert that I am. I know I would have read at least 15 of them and argued that I should get three votes then!

In Singapore, the International Schools pooled together to have a Red Dot Book Awards. It's a fusion of Australia's Readers Cup, America's Battle if the Books, as well as other schemes from other countries eg Japan, China and India. Teacher librarians choose books that are mirrors and windows to different cultures. It's left to these schools/ librarians the activities around these books. If they want to, they can also participate in the Readers Cup competition, where students read all the books in the list and compete against other international schools to answer questions based on these books.