If you work at a public library, a school library, or in the classroom, and have been hosting some form of Mock Battle of the Kids’ Books in your institution, or some other setting (home schooling, clubs, etc) we’d love to hear from you!  If you and your friends have been discussing or trying to figure out the outcomes of each match, we’d love to hear from you, too!

Use this GOOGLE FORM to submit your Mock BoB Story.

At our (Monica and Roxanne’s) school, a monthly Children’s Literature Circle for faculty members to read and discuss Children’s and YA books was turned into a a Mock BoB team these past two months. In January, every member received two books bracketed exactly like the actual BoB and had to read both and pick a winner between the two.

On Friday, March 4th, the teachers presented their decisions at a round table meeting presided by 2/3 of the BoB Commander.  We also had the pleasure of having the two official Kid Commentators with us to share their opinions.  Each faculty judge briefly introduced the content of the books and discussed in detail the merits and their reservations about each book.

We had a grand time talking about the books and sharing our agreements and dissents.

Here are the outcomes of 4 of the matches of Round 1, according to our teacher judges:

• Round 1, Match 1: Challenger Deep
  • While both books should be lauded, The Boys Who Challenged Hitler serves a historical interest while Challenger Deep addresses a current and immediate issue which concerns young adults today. As Challenger Deep is a work of fiction, it also comes across as a more compelling read for me.
• Round 1, Match 2: Echo 
  • I chose Echo because it mixed multiple genres that children love. There was the fairy tale element, historical fiction, and modern day realistic fiction. I felt that this made it more palatable for kids over Drowned City, which I thought was an amazing, informative, well-illustrated graphic novel of Hurricane Katrina.
• Round 1, Match 3: Gone Crazy in Alabama
  • I chose Going Crazy in Alabama because I thought it was a beneficial tale of family and generations that helped shed some light on a number of historical and cultural aspects of the African-American experience. This made for a more interesting read to me than the teenage drama of Goodbye Stranger.
• Round 1, Match 4: Hired Girl
  • I enjoyed The Hired Girl with its tale of a 14 year old in 1911 who runs away from her abusive family for a new life in Baltimore. Her exposure to music, art, and literature, in addition to romance, opens her eyes to new possibilities. This book and protagonist were much more appealing to me than the weird, eccentric, traumatized, and dysfunctional teenagers of I Crawled Through It which aptly describes how I read that book.

http://goo.gl/forms/DoflpQmDBX