In February, 23 student teams of up to six competitors, each dressed in uniquely literary-themed uniforms, participated in the 2023 Neil Armstrong Middle School Battle of the Books.
The fifth and sixth grade students were required to read the books, “Pax,” by Sara Pennypacker, “The Strangers,” by Margaret Peterson Haddix, “I Survived the Galveston Hurricane, 1900,” by Lauren Tarshis, and “Who Was Walt Disney?” by Whitney Stewart. In the competition, the moderator asked a series of questions from the various selections to determine which teams had done the best job of reading and retaining the information in those stories.
The competition had three parts – poster, costume, and trivia - and all had a fun night. The creativity for the posters and costumes was incredible, and all teams did incredibly well with the trivia competition.
The winning teams were:
Poster competition (as voted on by the NAMS faculty and staff):
- 1st Place: Bookbusters
(Nickolas Romito, Elliot Martin-Farmer, Brady Braham, Emery Turka, Miles Clancy and Landon Sierra)
- 2nd Place: Renaissance Readers
(Alexis Klutch, Phoebe Willis, Lexi McDermott, Ella Coley and Pratikshya Adhikan)
- 3rd Place: Rockin' Readers
(Juliette Hall, Hannah Watkins, Ashley Mattes, Bria Lang, Sophia Mary and Penny Werts)
Costume Competition (as voted on by the “Battle of the Books” competitors themselves):
- 1st Place: Renaissance Readers
(Klutch, Willis, McDermott, Coley and Adhikan)
- 2nd Place: Lord of the Books
(Bentley Beck, Jack Kareis, Justin Hughes, Jason Neopany, Jackson Underwood and Arzey Underwood)
- 3rd Place: Rockin' Readers
(Hall, Watkins, Mattes, Lang, Mary and Werts)
Trivia Competition:
- 1st Place: Rural Readers
(Leah Strack, Violet Conroy, Rachel Weiss, Emily Sabanovic, Kayla Paul and Kaitlyn Hemish-Swink)
- 2nd Place: Rockin' Readers
(Hall, Watkins, Mattes, Lang, Mary and Werts)
- 3rd Place: Rainforest Readers
(Emma Nelson, Mia Young, Dominic DiPaola and Samantha Hutson)
Congratulations to all of this year’s competitors!