blog post by Laura Yoo
The Story Studs. These are five guys – Keegan, Will, Nate, Sammy, and Julien – who are preparing for the biggest battle of their lives. It will be the one of the nerdiest and the coolest (at the same time, yes) things they do together: They will fight in Howard County’s Battle of Books.
Battle of Books is Howard County Library System’s impressive reading program that encourages elementary school students to read a same set of books and come together to compete. On April 17th, fifth graders from all over the county will show up at various high school gyms to battle in teams. They will have read and studied 12 books to answer questions about those books. They will have awesome team names – like the Story Studs – and decked out in costumes.
The coaches and the team members have been diligently working our way through the 12 books:
- The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
- Lucky Broken Girl and Ruth Behar
- Me, Frida, and the Secrets of the Peacock Ring by Angela Cervantes
- Forest World by Margarita Engle
- Sharks: Nature’s Perfect Hunter by Joe Flood
- Ban This Book by Alan Gratz
- Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
- Dara Palmer’s Major Drama by Emma Shevah
- The Real McCoys by Matthew Swanson
- Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier
- Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford
- Save Me a Seat by Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan
As the assistant coach, I have been enjoying the books, too. So far, Ban This Book, Ghosts, and Save Me a Seat have really impressed me. These books range in their topics, characters, and settings. Each book, however, touches on a theme or a topic that I’d love for all children to think about: how to welcome strangers, bullying, not judging a book by its cover, death, family, culture, friendship, family life, freedom of speech, censorship, and reading. Yes, just in these three books, the little readers are exposed to all these topics. I think Ban This Book ought to be made into a kids’ movie. The multicultural elements in Save Me a Seat and Ghosts show just how thoughtfully the library is choosing these books – books like these can be windows through which children can see and learn about other cultures.
The Story Studs will now meet about every other week to catch up with each other about the books they’re reading. At each meeting, the readers update each other on their reading progress and share one story map they’ve completed (this helps them take notes about each book). They play games to learn and memorize the titles and the author names. They have also begun drafting their own sample questions to use to prepare for battle. It’s fun, but it’a also serious learning business.
The beauty of this Battle of Books – at least for the Story Studs – is that it brings together these close friends to share more quality time outside of school. They arrive at one of our homes after school, eat snacks, and run around for a few minutes. Then, they sit and work diligently for a good 45 minutes. Then off they go again to release more of that 10-year old energy. I absolutely love it.
I will report back on how the real battle goes on April 17th. Now – where to find leather jackets for 10 year old boys…
HoCoPoLitSo 