Battle of the Books

Joy and I attended Howard County's annual Battle of the Books this evening.  Teams of five fifth graders read a dozen assigned books during the school year, then were asked 100 questions about them tonight. The proctor would read a quote or describe a feature from one of the books, then each team noted down the title and author of the book in question.

Here's Joy's team, the World Wide Readers, so named because four of the five girls have parents from other countries.  Joy lobbied to represent Denmark, since she has lots of ancestors from there, but since she knows zero Danish words and can't tell a frikadeller from an aebleskiver, she was stuck representing good old America.

Other teams dressed up as Jedi, royalty, Toy Story characters, and Willy Wonka with a quartet of Oompa Loompas.  I was really impressed with the work some teams put into their costumes.

The teams were given 30 seconds to answer a question, then teenage runners from the hosting high school collected all of the papers (to thunderous cheers from the audience).  Some of the runners gave the kids high fives as they sprinted back to their seats.

After halftime, local school officials (including Joy's vice principal in the pink shirt) took a couple turns as runners.  They were tired out after just two runs, which gave me greater respect for the teenage runner volunteers.

At first I had trouble telling when Joy's team got questions right, because they cheered after every single answer was announced.  I later learned that they were trying to win one of the "Best Team Spirit" awards.  Those ended up going to other teams . . .

. . . but Joy's team did win third place for "Best Costumes."  I guess the judges liked their globe hats. :)