The 7th & 8th Grade Battle of the Books is coming! On Wednesday, February 22 at 7 PM, seventh and eighth graders will battle for book knowledge supremacy at Cornell Area School District.
Registration
- Team registration must be completed by January 31, 2022 by 8:00 PM.
- Teams have 1-5 members.
- If you can’t find a team or need members for your team, contact Ms. Heather or Ms. Emily.
- Registration forms can be turned into your school librarian, Moon Library, Sewickley Library, or by email.
- Team managers will receive an information packet upon registration.
Books
What Lives in the Woods
By Lindsay Currie
Available as a book and ebook.
Summary: All Ginny Anderson wants from her summer is to relax. But when Ginny’s father—a respected restoration expert in Chicago—surprises the family with a month-long trip to Michigan, everything changes. They aren’t staying in a hotel like most families would. No, they’re staying in a mansion. A twenty-six room, century-old building surrounded by dense forest. Woodmoor Manor. Locals claim the surrounding woods are inhabited by mutated creatures that escaped a mad scientist over a hundred years ago. And some say campers routinely disappear never to be seen again. When the creaky floors and shadowy corners of the mansion seem to take on a life of their own, Ginny uncovers the wildest mystery of all: there’s more than one legend roaming Saugatuck, Michigan, and they definitely aren’t after campers.
What About Will
By Ellen Hopkins
Available as a book.
Summary: Twelve-year-old Trace Reynolds has always looked up to his brother, mostly because Will, who’s five years older, has never looked down on him. It was Will who taught Trace to ride a bike, would watch sports on TV with him, and cheer him on at little league. But when Will was knocked out cold during a football game, resulting in a brain injury–everything changed. Now, sixteen months later, their family is still living under the weight of the incident, that left Will with a facial tic, depression, and an anger he cannot always control, culminating in their parents’ divorce. Afraid of further fracturing his family, Trace begins to cover for Will who, struggling with addiction to pain medication, becomes someone Trace doesn’t recognize. But when the brother he loves so much becomes more and more withdrawn, and escalates to stealing money and ditching school, Trace realizes some secrets cannot be kept if we ever hope to heal.
The Fort
By Gordon Korman
Available as a book, CD audiobook, and ebook.
Summary: The morning after Hurricane Leo rips through the town of Canaan, residents awaken to widespread destruction — power outages, downed branches, uprooted trees, broken windows and damaged roofs. Four eighth-grade friends — Evan, Jason, Mitchell, and CJ — meet to explore the devastation. The tight-knit group is dismayed to find that Evan has brought along a stray — Ricky, who is new to their town and school, and doesn’t have any friends yet. Ricky is the one to find the strange trap door that’s appeared in the middle of the woods — the door to an old bomb shelter, unearthed by the hurricane. Inside, the boys find a completely intact underground lair, complete with electricity, food, and entertainment (in the form of videocassettes). The boys vow to keep the place’s existence to themselves.
Things soon get tense. Some bad locals keep snooping around. And what started out as a fun place to escape soon becomes a serious refuge for one of the kids who is trying to avoid an abusive home situation. In order to save the shelter, the friends must keep its secret… and in order to save themselves, they’re going to have to share their individual secrets, and build the safest place they can.
Everything Sad is Untrue
By Daniel Nayeri
Available as a book, ebook, and digital audiobook.
Summary: At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls “Daniel”) stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much. But Khosrou’s stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment he, his mother, and sister fled Iran in the middle of the night, stretching all the way back to family tales set in the jasmine-scented city of Isfahan, the palaces of semi-ancient kings, and even the land of stories.
#Prettyboy Must Die
By Kimberly Reid
Available as a book, ebook, and digital audiobook.
Summary: When Peter Smith’s classmate snaps a picture of him during a late night run at the track, Peter thinks he might be in trouble. When she posts that photo–along with the caption, “See the Pretty Boy Run,”–Peter knows he’s in trouble. But when hostiles drop through the ceiling of his 6th period Chem Class, Peter’s pretty sure his trouble just became a national emergency. Because he’s not really Peter Smith. He’s Jake Morrow, former foster-kid turned CIA operative. After a massive screw-up on his first mission, he’s on a pity assignment, a dozen hit lists and now, social media, apparently. As #Prettyboy, of all freaking things.
Ashlords #1
By Scott Reintgen
Available as a book and ebook.
Summary: Every year since the Ashlords were gifted phoenix horses by their gods, they’ve raced them. First into battle, then on great hunts, and finally for the pure sport of seeing who rode the fastest. Centuries of blood and fire carved their competition into a more modern spectacle: The Races. Competitors must be skilled at creating and controlling phoenix horses made of ash and alchemy, which are summoned back to life each sunrise with uniquely crafted powers to cover impossible distances and challenges before bursting into flames at sunset. But good alchemy only matters if a rider knows how to defend their phoenix horse at night. Murder is outlawed, but breaking bones and poisoning ashes? That’s all legal and encouraged. In this year’s Races, eleven riders will compete, but three of them have more to lose than the rest–a champion’s daughter, a scholarship entrant, and a revolutionary’s son.
Dry
By Neil & Jarrod Shusterman
Available as a book, CD audiobook, ebook, and digital audiobook.
Summary: The drought—or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it—has been going on for a while now. Everyone’s lives have become an endless list of don’ts: don’t water the lawn, don’t fill up your pool, don’t take long showers. Until the taps run dry. Suddenly, Alyssa’s quiet suburban street spirals into a warzone of desperation; neighbors and families turned against each other on the hunt for water. And when her parents don’t return and her life—and the life of her brother—is threatened, Alyssa has to make impossible choices if she’s going to survive.
The Epic Crush of Genie Lo #1
By F. C. Yee
Available as a book and ebook.
Summary: Genie Lo is one among droves of Ivy-hopeful overachievers in her sleepy Bay Area suburb. But when her hometown comes under siege from hellspawn straight out of Chinese folklore, her priorities are dramatically rearranged. Enter Quentin Sun, a mysterious new kid in class who becomes Genie’s self-appointed guide to battling demons. While Genie knows Quentin only as an attractive transfer student with an oddly formal command of the English language, in another reality he is Sun Wukong, the mythological Monkey King incarnate—right down to the furry tail and penchant for peaches. Suddenly, acing the SATs is the least of Genie’s worries.
Rules
- Each team has a Team Manager, who must be an adult at least 18 years old.
- Books can only be borrowed by team members. Team Managers cannot borrow books.
- Each team member can only borrow 3 books at a time.
- The overdue fines for Battle books are $0.25 per day.
- Teams arrive at Battle at least 15 minutes before it starts.
- Team Managers act as Scorekeepers for another team.
- The Battle Moderator will ask each question twice. There are 5 questions and three rounds of questions.
- Teams have 20 seconds to write down their answers.
- Up to 5 points are awarded for each answer. All decisions are final.
- The top three teams will receive prizes.
