BATTLE OF THE BOOKS TEAM APPLICATION
By signing this registration, you agree as a team to attend BOB meetings, read the Battle Books listed and compete in the Battle of the Books in May 2017.
Team name: ______
Team members (you may have four or five students per team):
STUDENT NAME / GRADE / 4th PERIOD TEACHER1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
*******OR*******
I am a solo player. Please find me a team!
______
Student name Grade 4th period teacher
COY MIDDLE SCHOOL’S BATTLE OF THE BOOKS COMPETITION
Like to read? Like a challenge? Like competition? Then the Battle of the Books is for you!! CMS students will be participating in a “Quizbowl” type program in the Coy IMC in May 2017. Here is what you need to do to step up to the challenge:
1. Get a team of four to five students. These students can be any mix of grades/ genders. Any student you want on your team is OK with us! Choose a team name, too.
*******OR*******
1. Register as a solo player, and we will find you a team!
2. Turn in your application (on the next page) to Mrs. Bush in the IMC, Miss Osterfeld in room 1505, or Mrs. Shirley in room 1711 by Thursday, September 15, 2016.
3. Read The Call of the Wild by Jack London, Missing May by Cynthia Rylant and The Teacher’s Funeral by Richard Peck by our first meeting (Thursday, October 20). Be prepared to discuss these books.
4. Study and memorize the list of books and authors. You will be quizzed on them at our first meeting.
5. Get copies of the Battle Books from local libraries or book stores to read. The Coy IMC will also have three copies of each novel that you can check out; listen for announcements when these become available.
6. Attend all six meetings. Meetings will take place in Coy’s IMC at 4:00 pm. All meetings are on the third Thursday of the month (October 20, November 17, January 19, February 16, March 16, and April 20). Your team must be present at 75% of the meetings in order to participate in the Final Battle!
7. Come hang out with us on Saturday, December 10th from 1-3 p.m. at the Beavercreek Barnes and Noble as we hold our first Read-In during the school book fair. Super excited about this outing!!
8. Participate in the Battle of the Books preliminary/final rounds on May 11th and 12th. Parents are welcome to come and cheer you on as you show what you know in this Battle of the Books!
9. Answer as many of our fact-based questions about these Battle Books as you can, and you may win the grand prize!!
10. If you have any questions, see Miss Osterfeld or Mrs. Shirley. Good luck and happy reading!
BATTLE BOOKS 2016-2017
(All book synopses taken from www.scholastic.com except as noted)
Read the following Battle Books by Thursday, October 20:
The Call of the Wild by Jack London (Lexile 1120)
This classic wilderness adventure explores the thin line that separates tame from wild — within animals and humans alike. Buck is an unusual dog, part St. Bernard, and part Scotch shepherd, with wolf blood in his ancestry. He is enjoying his comfortable life as a family pet in California when dog traffickers, who are meeting the demand for sled dogs in the Alaskan gold rush, steal him. The harsh winter is like nothing he has ever experienced, and each day with the sled dog team is a very real struggle for survival. Pushed to the limit, Buck finds instincts he didn't know he had — primordial urges deep within him are being awakened. Buck is passed from owner to owner, including a brutal threesome that lacks the resources to survive on their own on the Alaskan frontier. They beat Buck within an inch of his life. When John Thornton saves Buck, he is grateful, and for a time it seems that his domesticated side has won. But when Thornton is killed, Buck heeds the call: he returns to the wild, eventually becoming leader of a wolf pack and the legendary "Ghost Dog" of the Klondike.
In re-creating the world of the frontier, Jack London drew from his own experiences in the Klondike during the gold rush of 1897, and he vividly depicts the harsh conditions in which man and beast were forced to survive. Considered his masterpiece, The Call of the Wild is a gripping story that will resonate as strongly with today's readers as it did when it was first published nearly 100 years ago.
Missing May by Cynthia Rylant (Lexile 980)
When May dies suddenly while gardening, Summer assumes she'll never see her beloved aunt again. But then Summer's Uncle Ob claims that May is on her way back — she has sent a sign from the spirit world. Summer isn't sure she believes in the spirit world, but her quirky classmate Cletus Underwood — who befriends Ob during his time of mourning — does. So at Cletus' suggestion, Ob and Summer (with Cletus in tow) set off in search of Miriam B. Young, Small Medium at Large, whom they hope will explain May's departure and confirm her possible return.
The Teacher’s Funeral by Richard Peck (Lexile 750)
"If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time of year for it," begins Richard Peck's novel, a book full of his signature wit and sass. Russell Culver is fifteen in 1904, and he's raring to leave his tiny Indiana farm town for the endless sky of the Dakotas. To him, school has been nothing but a chain holding him back from his dreams. Maybe now that his teacher has passed on, they'll shut the school down entirely and leave him free to roam.
No such luck. Russell has a particularly eventful season of schooling ahead of him, led by a teacher he never could have predicted — perhaps the only teacher equipped to control the likes of him: his sister Tansy. Despite stolen supplies, a privy fire, and more than any classroom's share of snakes, Tansy will manage to keep that school alive and maybe, just maybe, set her brother on a new, wiser course.
Read the following Battle Books by Thursday, November 17:
Nory Ryan’s Song by Patricia Reilly Giff (Lexile 600)
Nory Ryan's family has lived on Maidin Bay on the west coast of Ireland for generations, raising a pig and a few chickens, planting potatoes, getting by. Every year Nory's father goes away on a fishing boat and returns with the rent money for the English lord who owns their cottage and fields, the English lord bent upon forcing the Irish from their land so he can tumble the cottages and clear the fields for grazing.
All day long, Nory dreams of food, coin [money], and a faraway place in America called Brooklyn, where no one is ever poor or hungry. But when a deadly disease strikes the Irish potato crop, the Ryans' dreams for a better life are destroyed. With her father and older sister far from home, Nory must be the one to find enough to eat, look after friends and family, and keep their hopes alive. Will Nory's family survive the Great Hunger?
Breaking Through by Francisco Jimenez (Lexile 750)
At the age of fourteen, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother, Roberto, and his mother, is caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home in California, the entire family travels for 20 hours by bus, arriving at the U.S.-Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his sister and four brothers not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice. How they sustain their hope, goodheartedness, and tenacity is revealed in this moving sequel to The Circuit.
Without bitterness or sentimentality, Francisco Jiménez finishes telling the story of his youth. Once again, his simple yet powerful words will open readers' hearts and minds.
The Last of the Breed by Louis L’Amour (Lexile 730) - barnesandnoble.com
Here is the kind of authentically detailed epic novel that has become Louis L’Amour’s hallmark. It is the compelling story of U.S. Air Force Major Joe Mack, a man born out of time. When his experimental aircraft is forced down in Russia and he escapes a Soviet prison camp, he must call upon the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian wilderness. Only one route lies open to Mack: the path of his ancestors, overland to the Bering Strait and across the sea to America. But in pursuit is a legendary tracker, the Yakut native Alekhin, who knows every square foot of the icy frontier—and who knows that to trap his quarry he must think like a Sioux.
Firegirl by Tony Abbott (Lexile 670)
When she enters the seventh-grade class at St. Catherine's, Jessica causes quite a stir. Jessica is disfigured from severe burns she suffered in an accident and is attending the school to be closer to the hospital. The children react in different ways, but Jessica changes Tom's life forever.
Read the following Battle Books by Thursday, January 19:
Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata (Lexile 740)
Glittering. That's how Katie Takeshima's sister, Lynn, makes everything seem. The sky is kira-kira because its color is deep but see-through at the same time. The sea is kira-kira for the same reason. And so are people's eyes.
When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia, it's Lynn who explains to her why people stop them on the street to stare. And it's Lynn who, with her special way of viewing the world, teaches Katie to look beyond tomorrow. But when Lynn becomes desperately ill, and the whole family begins to fall apart, it is up to Katie to find a way to remind them all that there is always something glittering — kira-kira — in the future. Luminous in its persistence of love and hope, Kira-Kira is Cynthia Kadohata's stunning debut in middle-grade fiction.
Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen (Lexile 670)
Whatever you do to the animals, you do to yourself. Remember that.
At fifteen, Cole Matthews has been fighting and stealing for years. The punishment for smashing Peter Driscal's skull into the sidewalk — his most recent crime — is harsh. This time, Cole will have to choose between prison and Circle Justice. He will live either behind bars or in isolation for one year.
Cole chooses Circle Justice. But in the first days of his banishment to a remote Alaskan island, he is mauled by a mysterious white bear and nearly dies. Will the attack of the spirit bear destroy Cole's life or save his soul?
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (Lexile 990)
Gary D. Schmidt offers an unforgettable antihero in The Wednesday Wars — a wonderfully witty and compelling novel about a teenage boy's mishaps and adventures over the course of the 1967–68 school year.
Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High, who must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn't like Holling — he's sure of it. Why else would she make him read the plays of William Shakespeare outside class?
But everyone has bigger things to worry about, like Vietnam. His father wants Holling and his sister to be on their best behavior: the success of his business depends on it. But how can Holling stay out of trouble when he has so much to contend with? A bully demanding cream puffs; angry rats; and a baseball hero signing autographs the very same night Holling has to appear in a play in yellow tights.
As fate sneaks up on him again and again, Holling finds Motivation — the Big M — in the most unexpected places and musters up the courage to embrace his destiny, in spite of himself.
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand (Lexile 990) -- barnesandnoble.com
Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. But his success was a surprise to the racing establishment, which had written off the crooked-legged racehorse with the sad tail. Three men changed Seabiscuit’s fortunes:
Charles Howard was a onetime bicycle repairman who introduced the automobile to the western United States and became an overnight millionaire. When he needed a trainer for his new racehorses, he hired Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from the Colorado plains. Smith urged Howard to buy Seabiscuit for a bargain-basement price, then hired as his jockey Red Pollard, a failed boxer who was blind in one eye, half-crippled, and prone to quoting passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Over four years, these unlikely partners survived a phenomenal run of bad fortune, conspiracy, and severe injury to transform Seabiscuit from a neurotic, pathologically indolent also-ran into an American sports icon.
Read the following Battle Books by Thursday, February 16:
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko (Lexile 600)
Moose Flannagan moves with his family to Alcatraz so his dad can work as a prison guard and his sister, Natalie, can attend a special school. But Natalie has autism, and when she's denied admittance to the school, the stark setting of Alcatraz begins to unravel the tenuous coping mechanisms Moose's family has used for dealing with her disorder. When Moose meets Piper, the cute daughter of the Warden, he knows right off she's trouble. But she's also strangely irresistible. All Moose wants to do is protect Natalie, live up to his parents' expectations, and stay out of trouble. But on Alcatraz, trouble is never very far away.
Set in 1935, when guards actually lived on Alcatraz Island with their families, Choldenko's second novel brings humor to the complexities of family dynamics and illuminates the real struggle of a kid trying to free himself from the "good boy" stance he's taken his whole life.