Battle of the Books is Back!
Battle of the Books is a reading competition where participants read books and compete against other schools around Hong Kong, testing their understanding and memory of books read (and us, only at FIS, get a pizza party and watch a movie at the end of the year). If you don’t make the team or choose not to compete, you can still come to the competition as mental support. Last year, I (Arthur Simoneau, the guy who made the speech during the introductory meeting) went to the competition and found it fun! I was in team A and made really good friends and lifelong memories. It was really cool. I didn’t find the experience to be too stressful, and I got the opportunity to be exposed to more books and answer questions about books. In the French Stream, Louise Arbey is the coach, Rose Chupin the coach helper and Mr. Wilson and Mme. Rebuffet are the teacher and librarian in charge. In TKO we have Victoire Lafon and Elena Rodriguez as student leaders. In the International stream, Olwen Brown, Alan Gu, and Jiya Mahapatra are the student leaders. Our student leaders support us while we train for the competition, which takes place in term 3. We try our best to win, but the competition isn’t all about winning, it’s about the experience!
The rules are simple: The judge will ask questions along the lines of “[Your Name], in which book does… [something happen], [Your Name]”. Participants are only allowed to start discussing after their name has been called the second time. They have 20 seconds to discuss among their teammates and answer the question. The book title is worth 2 points and the author’s name is worth 1 point. If they get it wrong, the question rebounds to the other team, and they have 10 seconds to answer with the title for a maximum of 2 points. The atmosphere is really tense at this point but in an exciting way. In class, we train; practice with Kahoots, practice mock rounds…and “do silly stuff about books, because that’s what we do” according to Louise.
FIS has participated in this competition for over a decade, and has previously broken into the finals of the competition numerous times and even won the overall competition previously! But Battle of the Books is not solely about the trophies or other diabetic incentives provided by our lovely student leaders – but rather about collaborating with other students, discussing books and making lifelong friendships.
Written by Arthur Simoneau (4ème)
