Three students from Gilbert’s Val Vista Elementary School are perplexed.
Sixth-graders Cassie Klosterman, Katherine Dai and Amy Pavlica said they studied harder last year than this year for the Gilbert Unified School District’s “Battle of the Books” competition — but yet, it was this year that they took first place.
“We are older and wiser,” said 12-year-old Amy. “Maybe we are just better readers.”
Fifteen of Gilbert’s 26 elementary schools participated in the “Battle of the Books” district finals Friday.
A committee from the Chandler Public Library, the Southeast Regional Library in Gilbert, and the Mesa Unified School District selected 12 books for teams across the East Valley to read throughout the school year.
Each participating school then held their own “Battle of the Books” competition where students were quizzed from each book to find the top teams to compete at the district level. The first, second and third place winners from each school district battle will appear at the regional competition May 15.
Settler’s Point and Houston elementary schools took second and third places, respectively, in the Gilbert finals.
Book battle
These are the books that have been read by East Valley students competing in this year’s Battle of the Books:
• “The Battle for the Castle” by Elizabeth Winthrop
•”Running out of Time” by Margaret Peterson Haddix
•”Poppy” by Avi
•”Beauty” by Bill Wallace
•”My Side of the Mountain” by Jean Craighead George
•”Dragon Hatcher” by Jeremy Thatcher
•”The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963" by Christopher Paul Curtis
•”Missing May” by Cynthia Rylant
•”Earthquake Terror” by Peg Kehret
•”Riding Freedom” by Pam Muñoz Ryan
•”Maniac Magee” by Jerry Spinelli
•”Because of Winn Dixie” by Kate DiCamillo
