 |
Battle
of the Books
Resources |
Rationale
-
IT’S FUN!!! This should be the main objective you strive for--for the young people,
you, your staff & those in the audience!
- Promotes
reading and love of literature
- Great
way to tap into teens’ love of friendly competition
- Provides
a great way to collaborate with the local school
- May
attract new teens to your library and get other teens interested in the books
used in the Battle
- Great
family/community event that shines positive light on local young people, the
library and good literature
Books and Websites
Starting a Battle of
the Books program
- Choosing Book Titles
- Choose variety from different
genres & from award winners, new books, classics
- Books should have strong plot,
good character development & theme to support variety of questions
without becoming too trivial
- Can select titles yourself,
identify more books than need and let young people choose or ask teens
for suggested titles
- How many titles? Depends on
number of participants, availability of books, complexity of competition.
(For first timers, 10 titles might be enough but you will need to pick
all new titles another year; alternative, choose many the first year,
use only 1/3 & have enough for 2 more year’s competitions.)
- Titles available in paperback
make it easier to purchase extras to increase availability. Might contact
publisher or bookstore to donate copies.
- Don’t announce titles you
will use in your Battle until specific date so everyone has same amount
of time to read and prepare.
- Will you make special display
of books being used or put on special Battle spine labels (removable ones)?
- Non-fiction, folklore and
biography are tricky to use; make sure questions only apply to that edition.
(You might say, “In which book on our list…”)
- Books in series also difficult,
as same characters, settings, themes may appear in all books
- Creating Questions
- You, library staff and coaches
can create questions & have team members create some that might be
used.
- Consensus is that wording
questions so that book title is always the answer is least confusing
for everyone.
- If you wish to encourage reading
of the books by others in audience, word questions so they don’t give
away story ending.
- If you want outside
input, set up suggestion box for other teens to suggest titles & write
questions.
- While reading books chosen,
make notes about interesting incidents, distinctive characters, plot twists,
notable themes, points about setting, repeated quotes or phrases. Note
page numbers so can add this info to actual question sheet, in case there
is a challenge during the contest
- If have large list of titles,
need at least 5 questions from each book; with fewer books, need more
questions per book
- If you will be using same
books for practice sessions & actual Battle, you will need even more
questions
- Make sure to mark which questions
were used which year or in which round of contest
- Do not create questions that
are tricky or too trivial; conversely, too broad/vague questions might
apply to more than one title
- If you will have playoff,
create questions that are harder to use in this later competition
- Make questions relatively
easy for first year’s competition so teens will feel positive about experience
& want to return next year
- If you work with neighboring
library (libraries), school media librarians or teachers, you could share
both selecting titles & creating questions
- Look at publishers’ web sites
for question inspiration from study guides
- Be certain questions are based
on the actual book & not a video/film version of title
- During practice or Battle,
mark questions that were missed or challenged & revisit them to either
reword or discard
- Setting up Teams
- Options: 1) Identify frequent
teen/tween library users and invite them to participate 2) Contact school
media person to identify & invite students 3) Get several teachers
to form class teams who then compete at the public library 4) Put out
publicity, have sign-up & let all interested teens take part in initial
book trivia mini-Battles or 5) Allow teens to choose their own teams
- NOT just for gifted students
or advanced readers. (“You don’t have to be wonderful, just willing.”
- Joanne Kelly)
- Select students going into
6-9 grades
- Choose 3-5 players per team
(plus 1-2 substitutes per team?)
- Determine how much control
you will have and how much the team members will have. (First year—you
might want to be in control to help things run more smoothly.)
- Issues for teams/coaches to
decide: Team name, team logo (for T-shirt and/or button—good library pr),
wacky dress-up ideas (possibly tied to team name?), will every member
read every book or will they divide titles?
- Rules
- Things to consider: Number
of players on teams, will subs be used--how many per team, number of questions
per game, how much time to answer each question, when can other team answer
& number of points they get, can audience answer as last resort, number
of points for right answer (for title, author, extra points for both?),
when to take break
- Volunteers
- Coaches—1 or 2 (preferably)
to work with teams, do mini battles to prepare them for competition
- Coaches can be library staff,
parents, teachers, school media librarians—any who are willing to read
books & work with teens
- Timer (responsible person
to track time when answering questions)
- Quiz master—asks questions,
scorekeeper, judge (might be quiz master or another person who has read
books)
- See if you can get local “celebrity”
of interest to teens to act as scorekeeper or timer, to add zip to program
- Publicity
- Put write-up in library’s
newsletter (& school’s, if possible)
- Send publicity to local news
media
- Create posters to place
in library, schools, community teen hangouts.
- Contact local bookstore; they
might make display of books being used, might give you discount on books
being used
- Create bookmarks listing Battle
titles—to encourage other teens to read books used
- Send list of winning team
members to local school media center to post.
- Send list of winning BOB
team members to local school media librarian to post.
- Running a local battle
- Use local contest to initiate
Battle concept in your library
- Set up timeline for reading
books, recruiting teens/tweens & adult helpers, creating questions,
doing pr, soliciting prizes in community, setting up dates for competition
- Consider using adaptation
of popular games—like Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Jeopardy, Wheel of
Fortune, others?
- Hold contest in space large
enough to hold potential audience (parents, other teens, community members)
- Solicit local merchants of
places teens frequent for prizes or gift certificates
- If you have several teams,
plan enough time for round robin competition with grand finale of two
highest scoring teams competing for “championship”
- Give each team member &
subs certificate of participation at beginning of contest, so everyone
gets something for taking part
- Get feedback verbally from
participants & also create evaluation form which can be available
at actual Battle
- Take pictures during contests
& display them in library; have someone videotape the Battle
- Invite media to attend &
do write-up, photos
- After Battle (but not
day of contest), have pizza or ice cream party for all participants
- Create plaque or trophy on
which is inscribed each year’s winning team
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