Middle school students from Rocky View Schools (RVS) were in Airdrie today for the seventh annual Battle of the Books at the RVS Education Centre.

At the competition, teams of middle school students (Grades 5-8) answer questions and showcase their knowledge of 15 pre-selected books. There were 12 teams representing schools from Cochrane, Springbank and Airdrie. This is the first time they have been able to do the battle in person since 2019 and this year's winner was C.W. Perry School here in Airdrie.

Here is a list of the books:

  • The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
  • Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
  • The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
  • Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13 by Helaine Becker
  • Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertram
  • Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenk
  • Ground Zero by Alan Gratz
  • No Place Like Home by Linh S. Nguyen
  • Space Cadets by Robin Pawluk
  • City Spies #2 by James Ponti
  • Counting by 7's by Holly Goldberg Sloan
  • Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg
  • A Girl Called Echo by Katherena Vermette
  • A Rover's Story by Jasmine Warga
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
AirdriePhoto of Ecole Airdrie Middle School team.

Angela Vanden Broek, Kerry Kindermann and Trinity Paterson who are all committee members for the event were all excited to see so many kids take an interest in reading books.

"It's just super re-invigorating and exciting to be able to engage with kids who are loving the books that we're putting in front of them," stated Paterson. "Being able to listen to them in between battles talk about what books they liked is special."

Paterson also mentioned some of these kids are not big fans of being part of the traditional sports teams and activities, so, this gives them another outlet to be themselves and be celebrated for it.

According to the committee, members' competition was fierce all day keeping the battles close. For 30-minute increments, two schools would go head-to-head, answering questions to the best of their ability with the most detail. Each battle would showcase 30 questions with them going back and forth between teams. If one team was unable to answer the question the other team would get a chance to steal. Vanden Broek talked about the competition they saw all day.

Airdrie

"It's been really close, the kids are providing awesome details of what they've read, and it's been super fun."

Kindermann wanted to thank the RVS Learning Service department for their support and for making this event possible by letting them use the education centre.

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