PORT ANGELES — The Bookworms, a team of home-schooled students from Port Angeles, took top honors in the county-wide Battle of the Books Competition.
The Forks Elementary Spartans and Olympic Peninsula Academy Bottles of Awesome Sauce tied for second place, and Greywolf Elementary’s Greywolves placed third at the contest on March 16 in the Port Angeles Library, where 13 teams competed.
The Bookworms team members include Josey Ray Cooley, Oliver Rather, Kayana Vass, Tes Karjalainen and Isaac Rutledge.
The final battle was the culminating event for a year-long book club for fourth-graders throughout the county to encourage reading. More than 220 children from throughout the county were a part of the program.
Participating schools also included Helen Haller, Greywolf, Olympic Peninsula Academy, Crescent, Dry Creek, Forks, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Queen of Angels and Roosevelt elementary schools and Quileute Tribal School.
During the school year, each participant read five books and met with library staff once a month to discuss them. Titles included “El Deafo” by Cece Bell, “Fish in a Tree” by Linda Mullaly Hunt, “The War that Saved My Life” by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, “A Dragon’s Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans” by Laurence Yep and Joanne Ryder, and “The Astounding Broccoli Boy” by Frank Cottrell Boyce.
As part of the program, each participant received a copy of each book and a custom student-designed T-shirt.
The Battle of the Books program is supported by the Friends of Sequim Library, the Port Angeles Friends of the Library and the Friends of the Forks Library.
For information about this and other programs for youth, visit the library website at www.nols.org, or contact the Youth Services Department of the Port Angeles Main Library at 360-417-8500 x7705, or Youth@nols.org.
