The House Battle of the Books competition started up last week with many teams testing their knowledge of the books they have read over the past few months. This year’s list consists of 13 books, compared to the previous years of only ten out of the 26 books in the Ohio Capital Conference (OCC) competition’s list.
“We decided, if there’s 26 total, [and] we know half of them, instead of just ten out of 26, we’ll have a little more advantage [in the OCC] that also gives students more selections to choose from,” Hayes librarian Sarah Ressler said.
The school partners with the Delaware County Library to compile ten copies of each book for students to have access to within the school library. However, when compiling the list of books they also want to make sure that the books are accessible on Hoopla or Libby for audio or ebook options.
“My favorite book was ‘As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow,’” Steamtown sophomore Serenity McFall said. “I just liked the plot of it; the plot twist was really crazy, I like the fact that even though she was in danger, she still helped out at the hospital every day.”
With the eight Houses competing to gain points towards the year-long House competition, each team is working towards receiving eight points for placing first in Battle of the Books. So far Houk leads with 90.5 points after the Ice Games, with Ridge not far behind. The goal of Battle of the Books was to get students and staff reading a diverse group of books and compete in a friendly competition.
Students competing in the House competition also have the opportunity to join the school team that will participate in the OCC Battle of the Books competition in April. Last year, around eight students out of roughly 50 students from the house competition moved on to the OCC team where Hayes reached the semifinals of the bracket.
“[At OCC’s] you get to talk to all the other people from all the different schools, they’re all very nice and last year we exchanged stickers,” senior Quin Anderson said.
This is Anderson’s third year competing in House’s Battle of the Books. Anderson and McFall both joined the school’s team last year.
Although students do not have to participate in the OCC Battle of the Books competition, the books students read in the House competition are a part of the conference-wide list. Another leg up on the OCC competition is that some of the questions used in the House competition are shared.
“Creating the questions is a really delicate balance, because you need a question that is going to be specific enough for the book but isn’t such a picky detail,” Ressler said.
Each head to head competition across Houses consists of two rounds; the first round is a back-and-forth round of 16 questions. The teams then go into the lightning round with 10 questions.
In the back and forth round, one House team answers at a time and only the team captain (chosen by the House participants) answers after discussion with the group. Whereas for the lightning round, each player has a buzzer, allowing them to buzz in and that player solely answers the question without help from their team.
“I prefer the general round because we all can talk and come up with an answer together,” McFall said.
The competition allows students to find different books and engage in a competitive House event with others that enjoy reading.
The staff at Hayes also gets involved in the competition, with their own competition of how many books they can read from the list. Cathleen Okunlola, a testing center coordinator, is in the lead when it comes to the staff so far. The sticker chart by the library has gold stars for students and staff that have read some or all of the books on the list.
Ressler mentioned that if students need an extra incentive to read, she is more than happy to give any students a prize or recognition on the star chart.
“I think I’m mostly going to miss nerding out with my friends over the books that we read,” Anderson said. “The community is the most fun part.”
