Photo by Lester Smith
Rigby Gee, with mic, offers the White Team’s answer to one of Mr. Spada’s questions in the seventh grade Battle of the Books at Suffield Middle School. In this round, the White Team members were, from the left, Rigby, Jackie LoVoi, and Libby Agrafojo, pictured, and Sophie Tosone and Jenna Woods, off-screen.
Suffield Middle School Librarian Dan Spada came to our town from the Illing School in Manchester two years ago, and he brought with him a reading incentive event he had administered successfully there. So for each of his new school’s three grades, separately in the school auditorium, he became the puzzle master for The Battle of the Books. When this reporter attended, it was an entertaining competition between the Blue Team and the White Team volunteers of the seventh grade, together comprising a large fraction of the grade. There were substitutions at half time, the score was displayed on a projected scoreboard, and the seventh-grade audience was enthusiastically responsive.
For each of the grades, Mr. Spada had picked a diverse assortment of books which were to be read by the contestants, though perhaps every team member didn’t read every book. The “young adult” books for the seventh grade were Legend, by Julie McAlpin, The Running Dream, by Wendelin Van Draanen, Trash, by Andy Mulligan, Happenstance Found, by P. W. Catanese, March: Book One, by John Lewis et al, and one of the Michael Vey series, by Richard Paul Evans. They ranged from fantasy to adventure to historical fiction. From this reporter’s brief Googling, they seemed like excellent choices.
After the books were read, the public competition began. As M.C., Mr. Spada offered a series of particular situations or facts from the books, and the teams, sometimes after a quick consultation, punched a button when they thought they could identify the source, very like a TV quiz show. Mr. Spada, with help from several English teachers, had selected a good variety of clues, some evidently quite easy, others challenging. The rules allow the first button-pusher to offer the answer, and in each challenge, if that answer is wrong, the other team gets to try. The scheme is conducive to suspense and excitement.
For the seventh grade at SMS on April 21, the White team won.