What is Battle of the Books?

Battle of the Books is a district wide competition between intermediate students. Independently, students read a selected list of 14 books. Each student must read at least three of the books from the list by January in order to sign-up for the competition. In teams of five, students memorize story elements and factual details from each story and answer practice questions. One final team will be chosen to represent SES in the Spring at the Battle of the Books competition.

Battle of the Books 2008-2009  The Beasts of Clawstone Castle – Ibbotson  Clementine  – Pennypacker  The Whipping Boy --Fleischman  Door in the Lake – Butts  Found – Haddix  Honus and Me – Gutman  Ingo – Dunmore  The Missing Manatee – DeFelice  My Life in Dog Years – Paulsen  Old Willis Place – Hahn  Rules – Lord  Someone Was Watching – Patneaude  Summer of Riley – Bunting  Word Eater - Amato

 

Rules for Finals Competition

1. Teams may not bring anything with them when they are competing.

2. Each team shall designate one member as the team captain. Only the captain may respond to a question.

3. A team has 30 seconds after a question is read to respond. If there is no response after 30 seconds, time is called and the team is given a chance to respond. They must respond within 10 seconds of time being called. If a correct answer is given, they will be awarded 10 points. If no response or an incorrect response is given, the team gets no points.

4. If the team being asked the question answers incorrectly, the remaining teams will be given 20 seconds to write down the correct answer. Teams who have written the correct answer will be given 5 points each.

5. A round will consist of 10 questions per team. At the end of the round the winner will be declared. If a tie occurs, there will be a tiebreaker round. Each team in the tiebreaker round will be asked 3 questions. All of the above rules apply to the tiebreaker round. 6. Captains of the team being asked a question may challenge a question. To challenge the team captain should clearly state, "I wish to challenge that question."

7. Challenges must be made after the correct answer is given and before the points are tallied. Only the group with the 10 point option gets to challenge.

8. The challenging team captain has 3 minutes to explain and prove the challenge. The team may be asked to locate a passage in the book in question to support their claim. If they can prove their claim, they will be awarded the full point value for that question.

9. If the challenge is not found to have merit, the score will stand.

10. If the judges cannot determine if the challenge has merit, the question will be discarded, no points will be awarded, and the question will be replaced by another question.

11. The decision of the judges is final and cannot be challenged.