On Friday 5 May we participated in the annual Battle of the Books reading challenge. Our semi-final competition was hosted by French International School (FIS) in Tseung Kwan O. We met lovely students from other schools who also share a passion for reading; this camaraderie and the whole festive environment made the occasion very exciting. What’s more, it was thankfully, and finally, our first face to face competition in four years!

Some of the rules for the competition were having 20 seconds to answer our team question, but we had time to discuss with our group before answering.  If one team gave the wrong answer then the other team could ‘steal’ the question but had only 10 seconds to answer.  Also, when answering questions we had to say the name of the book as well as the author. 

There were twenty books in total, and some of my favorite book titles were Ground Zero by Alan Gratz, Scritch Scratch by Lindsay Currie and The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag. We spent lots of time memorizing book titles and authors and spent lots of time reading books and answering practice questions for the competition. I am so thankful for Mr Cunningham helping us practice for the competition and never losing hope and never being negative about our chances.

I recommend my fellow students to join BOB next year because it is such fun and I wish I could do it again!

Talia, Grade 7