Battle of the Books

Tuesday got the lucky priveldge of hosting the culminating event of a four-month reading fest that has taken place with our ninth grade students. All ninth-graders participated in Battle of the Books (albeit, some more enthusiastically than others) by choosing a team and reading or becoming knowledgeable about fourteen novels. The first day teams competed in classrooms to answer a variety of questions about these fourteen books. One team from each classroom (17 total) moved on to the Finals, which was nothing short of awesome. Here is a taste:

Quit looking at my answer (Pirates, arrg.)!

Stumped.

Wait for it...

Success is so sweet! And apparently bitter.

In addition to the good times had in the competition, we had a visit from Jim Lynch, the author of The Highest Tide, which was one of the students' book selections. He provided my students with the perfect combo of nerdy-cool writer guy and mysterious sea-life-lover. Plus he dropped a couple f-bombs, which didn't hurt his presentation one bit. The book is now flying off my shelf.