Battle of the books

An idea shared on the LM-Net listserv Feb 2010...
Maybe it would make a good warm up or an alternative for the Kids' Lit Quiz ?

Thanks to everyone who sent me great suggestions for 5th grade Battle of the Books fantasy titles. Even if I don't add them to the battle, I will be ordering them for my library.

For those of you that asked about how I run Battle of the Books, it's a fifth grade reading incentive program.

• I have a list of 12 books and the students are broken up by class into teams of 4 to read the books. The may read as little as 3 or all of them.
  
• During the months of March-May when they are reading the books, they write questions about the story that all begin with "In which book...".
  
• At the end of the three months, we have a competition where teams compete against each other by answering questions from the books. The winning team from each class then goes on to the school competition to find the grand final winning team.

The fantasy titles suggested for the battle list include:

• Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
• Mister Monday by Garth Nix
  
• Redwall
  
• Merchant of death
  
• Revenge of the witch
  
• Amulet of Samarkand
  
• Black Book of Secrets
  
• The Game of Sunken Places by M.T. Anderson
  
• Atherton: House of power
• The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas
• Bruce Coville
• Magyk by Angie Sage
  
• Invention of Hugo Cabret
• Inkheart
  
• Eragon
  
• Midnight for Charlie Bone
  
• Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
  
• Hunger Games
  
• Skulduggery Pleasant
  
• The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
• Wrinkle in Time
• When You Reach Me
• Charlie Bone books by Jennie Nimmo
• Ranger's Apprentice from John Flanaghan
• Only You can Save the World by Terry Pratchett
• Half Magic by Eager
• Dragon's Milk by Fletcher
• Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
  

Megan LaConte, Library Media Specialist, Tamaques Elementary School, Westfield, NJ 07090 mlaconte@westfieldnjk12.org