Prince George’s long-running battle of the books competition has returned to taking place in person.
Battle of the Books is an annual competition within School District 57 (SD57) which has been happening for over 20 years.
Students form teams and read 12 books nominated for Red Cedar Awards and then answer questions in a quiz show format.
The 2023 Battle, which was the first to take place in person after moving online during the pandemic, saw 26 teams representing 14 schools.
The event is organized by Prince George District Teacher Librarians.
“Prince George over 20 years ago, made up this game to promote Canadian literature and to add to make it fun,” explained lead organizer Tina Cousins, a teacher-librarian at Vanway Elementary.
Cousins said she participated in her first Battle of the Books competition when she first began teaching back in 1999 at the now closed Haldi Road Elementary.
“Anytime you get a group of kids together to get excited over about reading. It's a bonus,” said Cousins.
“And some of these novels are incredibly good quality and deserve to have kids read them. Like there’s one book called sorry for your loss about grief, and I think that is a subject we are all in our lives going to have to deal with.”
Winners not only get bragging rights, but also a gift certificate to Books & Company, and door prizes are given out to the participants.
“The librarians are really excited about it, because it's been a team thing for many, many years,” said Cousins, explaining librarians throughout the district work together to make the event a success.
“It’s just really cool to see kids excited about reading.”
The winning team was Polaris 1, in second place was Heather Park 1, and tied for third place was College Heights 1 and Beaverly 1.
