Battle of the Books 2024

Posted On Friday April 19, 2024

Story provided by Andrea Wallin, District Library Learning Commons Coordinator

In the 2022-2027 District Strategic Plan, we are committed to developing students’ literacies (e.g., print, visual, digital, musical). District-wide events like Battle of the Books is one such initiative that inspires students to enjoy reading and getting involved in a community devoted to developing book-based learning and literacy.

School District No. 73 students have been busy reading, discussing, and preparing for this year's Elementary Battle of the Books! This popular reading motivation program is meant to encourage reading and to broaden reading interests. Students participating each read 12 books. Teacher-librarian organizers carefully select 36 suitable and engaging books for the three categories of competitors to read. The committee varies the titles chosen by genre and difficulty so that the readers may encounter a broad range of books.

Three lists of books are chosen, one for each of the grade categories. Students read the books, discuss them, quiz each other on the contents, and compete in teams of three to correctly answer the questions based on the books. The questions are all trivia style, beginning with “In what book...” so that the answer will always be the title of a book. Battle of the Books proves to be effective in its specified purpose – to stimulate an interest in reading.

Originally, an Alaskan Reading Motivation Program, a local teacher-librarian introduced the program to SD73 in the spring of 1987. That fall, SD73 teacher-librarians reorganized the program to incorporate Canadian content and developed a district model.

The first official district battle was held at Parkcrest Elementary School on April 13th, 1988. Eighteen elementary schools from the district participated. The Kamloops Battle of the Books program has grown to include as many as 30 elementary schools. The high school version, Battle Reboot, has been running for three years and has expanded this year to include grades 11-12 students. While the format is more of a jeopardy style with creative competitions, the goal remains the same - to encourage students to read and to foster a joy of reading. The District event takes place this year on April 27th.

This year we have 28 schools competing in the elementary Battle of the Books. These schools participated in Zone battles on April 18th and the following top two teams of each of the three grade levels advanced to the District Battle of the Books at the Henry Grube on Thursday, April 25th from 12:30-2:30. Good luck to these schools:

Grade 3/4

  • Rayleigh
  • Westmount
  • BEST
  • Arthur Stevenson
  • Aberdeen
  • Juniper
  • Pac Way
  • Sun Peaks

Grade 5

  • Rayleigh
  • Summit
  • BEST
  • Barriere
  • Dufferin
  • Juniper
  • Pac Way
  • Parkcrest

Grade 6/7

  • Rayleigh
  • McGowan
  • Arthur Stevenson
  • Barriere
  • Dufferin
  • Juniper
  • Pac Way
  • Pinantan

Contact Us