{"id":33170,"date":"2025-05-18T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=33170"},"modified":"2025-05-18T08:41:56","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T12:41:56","slug":"battle-of-the-books-a-bookmarkable-event-at-morgan-state-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2025\/05\/battle-of-the-books-a-bookmarkable-event-at-morgan-state-university\/","title":{"rendered":"City Schools Students Take Over Morgan State University for the Battle of the Books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Friday, April 25, one hundred and fifty six (156) fourth and fifth graders arrived at the campus of Morgan State University, an HBCU (historically black college\/university) in Baltimore, Maryland. The students were on campus for the 2nd annual city-wide Battle of the Books. Thirty-two (32) teams of Baltimore City Public School students were met by an eager, cheering throng of volunteers from Enoch Pratt Free Library and student volunteers from the Morgan State University Department of Education and Urban Studies. Like any other athletes entering the field or playing court, battlers were welcomed by the fanfare of the University\u2019s marching band, \u201cThe Magnificent Marching Machine\u201d. The band heralded readers as they made their way into the Earl S. Richardson Library where the event took place. This was all by design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Brooke Grams, the Coordinator for Library and Media Services for Baltimore City Schools, mentioned in the volunteer huddle before the children arrived to campus that they wanted volunteers to cheer and the band to play for the children as they arrived \u201cbecause the readers, the kids who love books, don\u2019t always get a chance to have someone cheer for them for reading. This is their chance\u201d. Kiera Powell, Elementary\/Tween Program Specialist for Enoch Pratt feels the same. She thinks that the Battle of the Books is \u201can opportunity to engage in an academic sport\u201d that can \u201cbroaden one\u2019s idea of competition.\u201d The Battle of the Books is a program that encourages children to read books and then engage in a friendly trivia competition about the books they read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goals of the partnership between Baltimore City Public Schools, Enoch Pratt Free Library, and Morgan State University, are to instill a love and passion for reading, provide an opportunity for participants to build confidence, give students a glimpse of the college experience, teach them how to work as a team, and experience, according to Ms. Powell, \u201cjoy\u201d. Participants in this year\u2019s competition were certainly joyful to be a part of the Battle. Several schools had such strong interest that they held mini-battles to determine which students would get to participate in the main event at Morgan State. Additionally, there were about 14 more participating schools this year than last. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the start of the day, students were treated to a hearty breakfast, and then given the rules of play. Each <\/p>\n\n\n

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team of three to five students had 30 seconds to answer a question about one of the ten selected books. All of the books were Black Eyed Susan Award<\/a> winning chapter books. No participant was expected to read all ten books on their own. Though there were some stalwarts, most teams divided the books among members. After round one, the students had a break before entering round two and a tie-breaker match for the final two teams. Noncompeting teams were treated to a tour of the campus. After the final match and tour, teams returned for lunch, then the winning team was announced and photographed. This year, the winning school was Hampden Elementary School. The winners received Nike backpacks that read, \u201cBattle of the Books Champion\u201d and the coveted \u201cBattle of the Books\u201d banner that they get to keep at their school for the next year. All participants received swag bags with one of the Black Eyed Susan Award winning titles, and lots of Battle of Books merch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked what her hopes were for next year\u2019s competition, Ms. Powell stated, \u201cI hope that it continues to grow!\u201d If this year\u2019s attendance is any indication, it most certainly will.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eiyana Favers<\/strong> is currently the Stacks and General Collection Supervisor at Morgan State University, member of ALSC, and she is sharing this post on behalf of the Children\u2019s and Libraries<\/em> Editorial Advisory Board.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All images courtesy of the author<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Core competencies: Programming skills, Outreach and Advocacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, April 25, one hundred and fifty six (156) fourth and fifth graders arrived at the campus of Morgan State University, an HBCU (historically black college\/university) in Baltimore, Maryland. The students were on campus for the 2nd annual city-wide Battle of the Books. Thirty-two (32) teams of Baltimore City Public School students were met by an eager, cheering throng of volunteers from Enoch Pratt Free Library and student volunteers from the Morgan State University Department of Education and Urban Studies. Like any other athletes entering the field or playing court, battlers were welcomed by the fanfare of the University\u2019s marching band, \u201cThe Magnificent Marching Machine\u201d. The band heralded readers as they made their way into the Earl S. Richardson Library where the event took place. This was all by design. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[2871],"tags":[253,203,115],"class_list":["post-33170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-children-and-libraries-cal","tag-advocacy","tag-outreach-2","tag-programming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}