The Battle of the Books is a reading incentive program open to students in the 4th-8th grade. The program began with the Sasquatch Reading Award challenge in 2019 for grades 4-6 and in 2020, the program expanded to include grades 6-8 and the Evergreen Teen book award challenge.
These reading incentive programs are sponsored by Our Lady of Guadalupe’s school library in cooperation with the Catholic School Library Association. Students are encouraged but not required to participate. Students who choose to participate will join teams, read Sasquatch or Evergreen award nominated books, and participate in a Jeopardy style competition. There are 3 rounds of competition, grade level, building level and district (archdioceses) level. The winning team from OLG will be invited to participate against winning teams from other regional Catholic schools at a site to be determined each year. Due to COVID-19 the battle was held online using the Zoom platform in the spring of 2020.
Our library has one or more copies of each title. The Seattle Public Library and the King County library also purchase multiple copies of these titles. The public libraries also have ebooks, and audio books for some of titles, so there are many options for access to these books. Some teams choose to purchase a set of books and share amongst their teammates, but this is not an expectation.
In October, the students are introduced to the set of books selected for the year. In January, students form into grade-level teams consisting of three to five students but are very strongly encouraged to have a team of four. Students will determine which books each team member will read based on the input from their teammates. Not every book will be the best fit for each child so it is important that students work together to ensure each team member is comfortable with their selection. The goals is to ensure that at least one person on their team has each of the 12 books.
In late spring (end of April early May) we begin the classroom and building competitions. Teams compete against other teams at their grade level answering questions about each of the award-nominated books. The winning team from each class/grade level will then compete against other OLG class champions. The winning team for Our Lady of Guadalupe School will compete against the winning teams from other regional Catholic elementary schools.
