Just so you know — the BoB Judges are being announced…

starting today.

In the Classroom: Battling Books

Tomorrow the fifth annual Battle of the Kids’ Books gets underway with a match between Bomb and Wonder judged by Kenneth Oppel.  Now some, I know, are uncomfortable with the concept of books in battle, but I wish they wouldn’t be.  In fact, the idea is for sixteen well-lauded books from the year before to be highlighted and admired again in a new and different way. What our judges do is thoughtful and  in-depth, considering the two books they have been asked to judge and, in a variety of ways, coming up with a winner for this contest. Just with any tournament, all the contenders are great and it is just how things play out on this particular day that makes for a particular match winner. Another day and different judges and a different winner might well be the result (as is the case with pretty much all awards and contests).

I’m writing about this within a classroom context because this contest has been a terrific one for young people. Roxanne Feldman and I (the two-person Battle Commander) have been involving our students in the Battle for the last two years.  Last year we introduced two very fine Kid Commentators (who will be back this year) and this year we had 5th-8th graders write introductions for the contenders.  That is, each assumed the role of one of the actual books, and did a terrific job with it.  (Those are here, here, here, and here.) This is something any teacher or librarian can do! In fact, we hope to expand this beyond our own students and school next year.

And that isn’t the only thing that is possible in schools and libraries.  A high school library in Texas contacted us to let us know she was running the contest in her school. Others have told us of displays, bracket pools, and more.  Every time we hear of this we are delighted because we’ve always hoped for the involvement of young people. Most of all I aspired to a Shadow BoB like the Shadowing Site done for the UK Carnegie Award (comparable to our Newbery).  In that, young people read and vote and often come up with a completely different winner from the official judges.  It would be so cool to do something like that for the BoB.

Meantime, I do encourage teachers (especially those put off by the battle metaphor) to take a look and think about how they might want to use it in their own teaching and schools.  And let us know if you do!

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SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books — Judges are Coming!

Today we begin announcing the judges and the first one is here!

SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books: The 2013 Contenders

This is the fifth year of SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books, a fun fantasy battle modeled on The Tournament of Books which is itself modeled on basketball’s March Madness. Fun is the operative word here. The idea is to simply use the structure of a battle or match between two often very different, but always lauded books judged by a very distinguished writer of children’s or young adult books. We’ve been incredibly fortunate in having a stellar collection of judges over the years.  Lois Lowry, Katherine Paterson, and Jeff Kinney are just some of the really amazing judges we’ve had.  Do go back and read some of their terrific decisions here.

The main event will start in March, but to give followers plenty of time to prepare we are announcing the contenders today.  So go here to find out this year’s picks! (And if you want to know a bit more about how we made those selections go here.)

Look What’s Coming Later This Month

Good ol’ BoB.

Grand Finale for SLJ’s 2012 Battle of the Kids’ Books

Today for the BoB‘s final round Big Kahuna Jonathan Stroud decides between Ruta Sepetys’s Between Shades of Gray, Mal Peet’s Life: An Exploded Diagram, and Gary D. Schmidt’s Okay for Now (the Undead Poll winner).  It has been a grand battle this year — the judges were uniformly brilliant as was our stalwart commentator Jonathan Hunt. This year we added on two kid commentators, 6th grader GI and 7th grader RGN.  They were amazing and I hope we can develop this aspect of the commentary further next year. In fact, my dream has been for someone to volunteer to develop a shadowing site modeled (albite way smaller) on the Greenway/Carnegie one.

Congratulations to all!

And We Are Off!

Today begins the 2012 SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books. Age four now, my baby is growing up. We’ve got amazing contenders, judges, commentators (a couple of kids this year in addition to Mr. Hunt), sponsors, and followers.  Be sure to check in daily over the next few weeks.  It is going to be grand!

This Isn’t My First Battle

SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books OFFICIAL (well, as official as anything we do at the BoB) Trailer!

Created by the amazing Everdeen Sisters (AKA Summer Ogata and Lauren Downey). More about them and their making of the trailer here.

The Judges Are Coming!

To launch this year’s Battle of the Kids’s Books SLJ did a smashing article in which four of our distinguished judges were revealed.  Starting today we will be celebrating each of our judges with individual posts. The first four will be of those already announced, but then we will go with those who were not. So if you want to know ALL of this year’s judges keep a close eye over the next few weeks over at the BoB site!

As for what they will be judging — we will be announcing that closer to the time of the actual Battle.

 

SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books 2012

And so it begins — the contenders for this year’s Battle of the Kids’ Books have been revealed! If you aren’t familiar with this contest (which yours truly, I’m happy to admit, initiated four years ago), do check it out.