About Alaska's

BATTLE OF THE BOOKS

Battle of the Books is an Alaskan reading motivational and comprehension program sponsored by the Alaska Association of School Librarians. The goals of the program are to encourage and recognize students who enjoy reading, to broaden reading interests, increase reading comprehension and promote academic excellence.

New lists of recommended titles for each level are compiled each year by a committee of Alaskan librarians and teachers based on the Criteria for Book Selection. An attempt is made to vary the titles chosen as to genre and difficulty, so that readers may encounter a broad range of books. At the annual AkLA Conference, the official booklist for state competitionfor the following year is set, so that planning to obtain the titles can begin.

To become part of the AkASL Battle of the Books Program, each individual school district coordinator must send in the registration form with the appropriate fee to the AkASL treasurer to receive the first mailout from the committee. As soon as a school district is registered with the Battle of the Books Committee, an up-dated handbook, practice and district questions for all gradelevels of books and informational mailings will be sent to the district coordinator. In addition to the essential materials, promotional ideas, materials, logo masters, and other support materials will be available to participants.

The original idea for Battle of the Books came from a radio program sponsored by the Chicago Public Library in the early 1940's. Joanne Kelly, a student participant in the radio show, became a school librarian in Urbana, Illinois. While she was there, she reconstructed the radio show from memory for use in her library.

Many years later another Chicago area school librarian, Roslyn Goodman, found her way to Kodiak, Alaska, bringing the Battle of the Books idea with her. She used it in Kodiak in the 1981-1982 school year and word of the program spread. In 1982-1983, Hermon Hutchens School in Valdez received a Merit Award from the Department of Education for their Battle of the Books program and Battle of the Books soon spread to Anchorage, Fairbanks, Valdez, Tok and Northway. Winning teams from Northway and Tok participated in an interschool audio-conference Battle.

Thanks to Linda Barrett's (Anchorage School District) suggestion to hold inter-school and inter-district Battles via audio-conference equipment and Pat Thurman's (Fairbanks North Star Borough S.D.) enthusiasm and organizational efforts to promote a statewide program, librarians from Dillingham, Kodiak, Valdez, Tok and Fairbanks met via audio-conference on May 19, 1983 to make plans for Alaska's first statewide audio-conference competition. Fourteen school districts around Alaska participated in the program in April 1984. By 1984-1985, twenty-six districts were involved in the program. In 1988-89 there were fifty-one Alaskan districts participating and several out-of-state districts requested Battle of the Books packets. Although the number of participating districts varies from year to year, overall interest in this exciting program remains high.

For further information, contact the AkASL Battle of the Books Statewide Coordinators:

Shelly Logsdon

slogsdon@mtaonline.net