The Battle of the Books returns for 4th year
Trending
NEW ULM -- The fourth annual Battle of the Books was held at New Ulm Middle School Wednesday, and this year some new faces winning the competition.
Each year, the middle school hosts the Battle of the Books. In October, the students were given a list of 12 books to read. In teams of three, the student would spend the school year studying the books to answer questions during the competition.
This year's books were "Star Fish" by Lisa Fipps, "The Bridge Home" by Padma Venkatraman, "City Spies" by James Ponti, "A Night Divided" by Jennifer Nielson, "Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys, "The Ruins of Gorian" by John Flanagan, "Roller Girl" by Victoria Jamieson, "White Bird" by R.T. Palacid, "From the Desk of Zoe Washington," by Korman, "Sounder" by William H. Armstrong, "Daughter of the Deep" by Rick Riordan and "All Thirteen' By Christina Soontormval.
This year around 60 middle school students on twenty-one teams competed to be the best read.
Middle School media specialist Vickie Tambornino said it was an exciting competition because more teams entered this year and parents were able to attend. Over the last two years, parents were not allowed to watch The Battle of the Books because of COVID restrictions, but several returned to watch the competition.
The contest lasted three rounds. The first round featured 24 questions. The second round had 18 and the last round had 12 questions.
The teams answering the most correct questions moved on to the next round. Five teams made it to the last round. Team "The Nerd Herd" was declared the winner with the highest score.
"The Nerd Herd" team included 6th grades Greta Berger, Savanna Hedlund and Lydia Miller.
Asked about the secret to winning Battle of the Books, Hedlund said they doubled up on all the books. For every book on the reading list, at least two members of The Nerd Herd read it before the tournament. Some books they read before getting the reading list in October. All three students read "Star Fish" before entering the competition.
Berger said she read "The Ruins of Gorian" several times and was her favorite of the 12 books. Miller said "Daughter of the Deep" was the best. Hedlund liked "From the Desk of Zoe Washington" the most.
One quirk of this year's Battle of the Book is it was the first time since the first year without a repeat winner. For the three years of the competition, Sophie Berger was on the winning team. As she is no longer a middle school student, she was unable to compete in 2023. However, Sophie's younger sister Greta Berger was able to compete and was one of the winners.
Greta Berger said her sister strongly encouraged her to win to keep on the Berger tradition. This means a member of the Berger family has won The Battle of the Books each year.
Since "The Nerd Herd" are a sixth-grade team, they will be able to defend their title in 2024.