A New Champion Emerged at the 2025 Secondary Battle of the Books

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The Kamloops-Thompson School District’s annual Battle of the Books is a beloved local reading motivation program that inspires a love of reading across all grade levels. This fun, engaging, and interactive event encourages students of all ages and reading levels to develop and deepen their passion for literature through friendly and spirited competition. 

At the beginning of May, elementary students competed in the 37th annual Battle of the Books. Later that month, it was secondary students' turn to showcase their literacy knowledge and teamwork in the Battle Reboot.

On May 30, 2025, 45 students from six Kamloops secondary schools gathered at the Henry Grube Education Centre to compete in the Secondary Battle of the Books. This year’s battle included Grade 8-12 students representing teams from Sa-Hali, Westsyde, NorKam, Brocklehurst, Valleyview, and South Kamloops secondary schools.

The 2025 battle booklist included titles such as The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, I Am Malala by Malala Yousafza, The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang, to name just a few. 

Throughout the day, students competed in a series of book battle challenges. These included three rounds of Jeopardy-style trivia based on this year's books, a creative loose-parts challenge where teams has to symbolically represent the theme "transformation is never limited to one person" connected to three of the books they read using craft materials, and a persuasive "pitch" about the book they thought was the best. Teams earned points in each event, with the highest-scoring team declared the winner.

After winning the past two years, the defending champions from NorKam Secondary were narrowly defeated by the team from Westsyde Secondary. The Westsyde students not only earned bragging rights but also took home the coveted Battle trophy (a beautiful, unique award designed by Valleyview Secondary Teacher-Librarian Dianne Bell) for their school.

While Westsyde won the battle, it was a fun and rewarding day for all involved. All students impressed the judges and staff organizers with their in-depth knowledge of the books and their passion for reading.

Special thanks go out to the team of Teacher-Librarians—Theresa Beecher-Hafeli, Dianne Bell, Tara Fairbrother, Gregg Hafeli, Aleasha Kachel, and Trisha Rimmer—as well as Mike Carson, Secondary Literacy Resource Teacher, and Andrea Wallin, Library Learning Commons Coordinator, who organized this event. Their dedication and enthusiasm for Battle of the Books and other literacy initiatives helps to support and grow literacy strategies across the District, which is a key focus of the Intellectual Development priority in the  2022-2027 District Strategic Plan.