Sports may have been nixed for the remainder of spring, but there is one more competition left before this surreal academic year comes to an end.

B.T. Bullock Elementary and Greenwood Elementary will take part in a Battle of the Books competition Tuesday and Thursday through Google Meet. Led by AIG specialists Charlene Schlott from Bullock and Leslie Cottrell from Greenwood, teams of between six and 12 fourth- and fifth-grade students will compete by answering questions based on 15 books they were tasked to read this year. The original competition was to feature all local elementary schools and was canceled (along with just about everything else) due to schools closing, but Schlott and Cottrell decided to go ahead with a smaller virtual event. 

“We wanted the community to know that we as teachers are not only providing academics, but trying to keep the ‘fun stuff’ in our daily homeschool life,” Schlott said. “Our students deserve to continue to have the best we can offer.” 

The schools’ fourth-graders will compete online at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday, and the fifth-graders at 11:45 on Thursday. The books listed in this year’s Battle of the Books were: 

  • A Nest for Celeste by Henry Cole 
  • Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate 
  • Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt 
  • Front Desk by Kelly Yang 
  • The Great Treehouse War by Lisa Graff 
  • Greetings From Nowhere by Barbara O’Connor 
  • The Key to Extraordinary by Natalie Lloyd 
  • The Last Musketeer by Stuart Gibbs 
  • The League of Seven by Alan Gratz 
  • The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick 
  • Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe by Jo Watson Hackl 
  • Smells Like Dog by Suzanne Selfors 
  • Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George 
  • Ungifted by Gordon Korman 
  • Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen