Battle of the Books...the Duece!

Thursday was Battle of the Books for Sarah. It was her second year doing it. She did awesome! She even won a "challenge" for her team. A challenge is where your teams has an answer that is different from the judges, but believes that they are correct. A "challeging" team has 2 minutes to find a passsage in the book to back up its answer. The speaker then "proves" to the judge that it is there, through verbal argument backed up with written passage and/or illustrations. Sarah was the speaker during this question: "In which book does a character lay down and cry in fright?" The answer the judge had was "Akimbo and the Lions." Sarah's team wrote down "Roxie and the Hooligans." In the challenge, Sarah showed the text, which said that the character "sobbed in fright" and showed a picture where the character was lying down in the passage. Her team got the credit!

What I am even more proud of is her maturity. Her fellow team members were a year younger than she, and were often very implusive in their answers. Sarah was more thoughtful, and would often come up with the correct answer after the other girls quickly wrote down their best guess. They would get it wrong, but she never got irrated with them. She also is the only person on her team who read all 15 books. Since there are four people on the team, but only 3 play at a time, she wanted to play a second round and have someone else sit out twice for "the good of the team." I told her that wasn't how it worked. In that last round, the team missed around half of the questions, all of which Sarah knew. Had she played, they would have gotten a ribbon (give out for those in eighth place or better) Had they written down her answers, they would have medalled. (3rd place and above.) Sarah didn't pout, she didn't get mad at the girls, and told them they did well. She was dissapointed they didn't get a ribbon or medal, but she was proud of herself for not getting mad at the team. On the way home she told me, "That's why I sometimes don't like working on a team. I'd rather be on my own, because then I could've gotten a medal." Join the club, Sarah! But good job being a true team player!

A few pictures:

Both teams getting a quick "potty break" before the battle began:
Sarah tests her blood sugar and the team has a snack to prepare for the battle:

The team in the final round. Sarah was the alternate. The cute man in the brown shirt and glasses was not an official member of the team.


Way to go, Sarah!