Battle of the Books is an optional reading opportunity for 4th, 5th and 6th grade students to: self select a team, read chosen books and to compete against other teams in the school regarding information from the books.

Books used in the Battle of the Books are chosen by the LWSD Elementary Librarians based on current award nominees, professional reviews, and student interest.  Each June, the list is posted for the upcoming school year. 

Students are responsible for creating their teams, signing up with a team, and devising a strategy to read the books.  In general, the more members of a team that have read a book, the more likely someone will remember the details of the question.  Teams that have done well have read early, read often, and re-read books!

Teams participate in a double elimination tournament during recesses.  Mr. Simmons moderates all battles. Our championship team then competes with other schools within our district, via a live web chat, in a single elimination tournament.  District questions are different than the school battle questions and are more difficult.

Battle of the Books Rules

• Teams shall consist of no more than four members, grades 4 - 6.
• Students may be from different classes.
• One team member shall be designated as the "Spokesperson" who will be responsible for reporting the team's answer.  The team may talk amongst themselves to come up with the answer.
• Each team will be given 30 seconds to give the title of the book.  The timing starts as soon as the question is asked once.  The team may ask to have the question repeated but the clock will continue running.  After 30 seconds the scorekeeper will call "Time."  If the Spokesperson is giving an answer when "Time" is heard, she/he may finish the answer.
• New questions will alternately be given to each team regardless of which team gave the last correct answer.  In other words, if team A is given a new question, team B will be given the next new question, even if team B just correctly answered a question that team A had just missed.
• The title must be exact. 
• The moderator's decision will be final in the case of any team answer, which may be questionable.
• Battles will not be rescheduled due to student illness or vacations.
• Substitutes for missing team members are not allowed 

Scoring

• 2 points for a correct answer to a new question
• 1 point for "stealing" an answer to a missed question