At the beginning of spring, friends, family, and coworkers get a little competitive, creating brackets for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships, in attempt to predict winners of each round during March Madness.
Joining the fray this year, students at Atkinson Elementary are competing in their own “Tournament of Books,” created by Media Specialist Lynne Evans. Knowing March is traditionally a time for basketball rivalries, Evans asked herself, “How can I make this into a literacy event?”
Evans went to her computer and pulled up a record of all the books in Atkinson’s library and the number of times they have each been checked out by students. She picked the most popular 16 books checked out by students in grades K-2nd and 3rd-5th, and created a bracket of books.
Like the basketball teams, the books are paired together and go head-to-head. Students vote on one book from each pairing and the book with the greater number of votes from each pair moves on to the next round.
The competing books included “Skippyjon Jones” by Judith Schachner up against “Don’t Let the Pidgin Drive the Bus” by Mo Willems, and “Ghosts” by Raina Telgemeier verus “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by Jeff Kinney.
Evans said that all students are able to vote in the tournament. Her only two requirements are that the students have read the books they’re voting for or in the process of reading them.
A group of 5th graders and 2nd graders visited the library Thursday to vote in the tournament. Fifth-graders Morgan and Stephanie were helping the the younger students choose their books.
Caroline, a 2nd-grader, voted for Skippyjon Jones, “Because I like what the author and illustrator put in the book,” she said.
During computer lab, students can log into the Google Form Evans created to cast their votes. Students on Atkinson’s Battle of the Books team are active participants in Evans’ book tournament. Brock, Battle of the Books member and 4th-grader, said his favorite book in the tournament was “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling.
Fellow 4th-grader Raleigh agreed with Brock, but said her favorite book of all time was “Smells Like Dogs.” She said, “We love that book.”
(Written by Alex Ramirez, Early College Public Information Office Intern, HCPS.)