Kamloops This Week: 2008 April 20
Christopher Foulds
Their faces were frozen, their cheeks round balls, their eyes alight and the edges of their mouths stretched to offer the world a permanent grin.
Giggling, they unzipped their coats to show off their school jerseys, then grabbed each other’s hand as they skipped to the car, babbling to each other in near-incoherent chatter.
They were nervous — and why not?
This was their Super Bowl, their Grey Cup, their Stanley Cup, their Olympics all wrapped into one event.
The two Grade 3 girls — my daughter and her teammate, Allison — were a combined giggling mess as we set off from Aberdeen elementary, en route to Valleyview’s Marion Schilling for the regional Battle of the Books competition.
“I’m sooooooooo nervous,” confessed Allison (“Allie” to her friends) to which my daughter, who was the spitting image of Guy Smiley, could only nod.
Then Allie’s countenance took on a serious appearance and a slight frown emerged.
“I hope nobody throws up,” she offered.
“People throw up when they get nervous. If someone throws up, we’d have to stand next to throw-up.”
Silence for a few moments as expectoration became the most relevant topic to be considered.
The girls were part of the Grade 3/4 Aberdeen team at the Battle of the Books, a district-wide contest in which schools compete against one another, with knowledge of books read being the game ball.
And they had to read a lot.
Because of Winn-Dixie, Bobby Baseball, Frindle, Harriet’s Hare, Invisible Harry, James and the Giant Peach, Lafcadio, Lisa: Overland to Cariboo, Leaving the Log House, My Robot Buddy, Seven Treasure Hunts and War With Grampa were the tomes in play, and the seven schools at Marion Schilling on this day were peppered with scenarios, familiar and vague, they had to match to the correct story.
“I can’t feel my legs,” whispered Aaron, another Aberdeen book battler, during a break.
“This is soooo scary,” added my daughter.
Weeks earlier, when she made the team, she was over the moon with excitement, but she attempted to downplay the accomplishment.
“It’s not like we’re like the basketball team or anything,” she said over dinner.
“We’re not representing the school.”
Oh, yes you are, I insisted, though that reality didn’t hit her until the big day, when the squad left the school proudly decked out in Aberdeen Highlander jerseys.
The Battle of the Books was brought to the Kamloops-Thompson school district in 1988 by Faith Bailey, a teacher-librarian who remains today the competition’s chairwoman.
Bailey read about the event in a teacher-librarian journal and worked to get it started here.
The intent is to get kids interested in reading, obviously, but there’s more to it than that
“We also get them to read books they would not normally pick up,” she says. “We get them out of their comfort zone.”
The Battle of the Books is now 20 years old and some things are constant — girls enter more often than boys and the winning teams tend to be the squads whose members read each of the 12 books six or seven times.
And some things have changed.
For example, only in the past few years has the Battle of the Books received district funding, which has vaulted the cerebral competition into being recognized as an official school-district program.
On that day at Marion Schilling, the Grade 3/4 kids from McGowan Park elementary were on their game, winning the regional event.
They advanced to this past week’s district championships at the Henry Grue Education Centre and won it all.
My daughter’s team finished fourth and were understandably ecstatic.
The smiles they wore en route to the battle were still plastered on their faces as they left the event.
It’s about reading, true; it’s also about instilling self-esteem, as was evident when my daughter returned to Aberdeen to find a card of congratulations signed by her entire class.
It is a big deal, despite the nonchalant attitude of the kids.
“I coach a team, too,” Bailey says. “Only mine isn’t basketball.”
The Battle of the Books can be accessed online at http://sd73librarians.sd73.bc.ca/.
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