5th Grade Battle of the Books – 2024

The 5th Grade Battle of the Books is coming! On Wednesday, April 10 at 6:00 PM, fifth graders will battle for book knowledge supremacy at the Moon Area Middle School Gym.

Registration

• Team registration must be completed by February 1, 2024. Click HERE to register.
• Teams have 1-5 members.
• If you can’t find a team or need members for your team, contact Ms. Megan.
• Team managers will receive an information packet upon registration.

Books

Babymouse – Tales from the Locker #1: Lights, Camera, Middle School!

By Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm

Available as a book, ebook, and digital audiobook.

Summary: For Babymouse, middle school is like a monster movie. You can never be sure who s a friend and who’s an enemy, and the halls are filled with mean-girl zombies. Instead of brains, the zombies hunger for stuff the perfect wedge sandals or the right shade of sparkly lip gloss and they expect everyone to be just like them.
But Babymouse doesn’t want to fit in, she wants to stand out! So she joins the film club to write and direct a sweeping cinematic epic. Will making the film of her dreams turn into a nightmare?

Greenwild #1: The World Beyond the Door

By Pari Thomson, Elisa Paganelli, & Alan Baker

Available as a book, ebook, and digital audiobook.

Summary: Eleven-year-old Daisy Thistledown is on the run. Her mother has been keeping big, glittering secrets, and now she has vanished. Daisy knows it’s up to her to find Ma―but someone is hunting her across London. Someone determined to stop her from discovering the truth.

So when Daisy flees to safety through a mysterious hidden doorway, she can barely believe her eyes―she has stepped out of the city and into another world.

This is the Greenwild. Bursting with magic and full of amazing natural wonders, it seems too astonishing to be true. But not only is this land of green magic real, it holds the key to finding Daisy’s mother.

And someone wants to destroy it.

Daisy must band together with a botanical genius, a boy who can talk with animals, and a cat with an attitude to uncover the truth about who she really is. Only then can she channel the power that will change her whole world…and save the Greenwild itself.

Legends of Lotus Island #1: The Guardian Test

By Christina Soontornvat & Kevin Hong

Available as a book.

Summary: Young Plum is shocked to discover that she’s been accepted to the Guardian Academy on Lotus Island, an elite school where kids learn how to transform into Guardians, magical creatures who are sworn to protect the natural world. The Guardian masters teach Plum and her friends how to communicate with animals and how to use meditation to strengthen their minds and bodies. All the kids also learn to fight, so they can protect the defenseless if needed.

To her dismay, Plum struggles at school. While her classmates begin to transform into amazing creatures, Plum can’t even seem to magic up a single feather! If she can’t embrace her inner animal form soon, she’ll have to leave school ― and lose the first group of real friends she’s ever known.

 

Nic Blake and the Remarkables #1: The Manifestor Prophecy

By Angie Thomas

Available as a book, CD audiobook, ebook, and digital audiobook.

Summary: It’s not easy being a Remarkable in the Unremarkable world. Some things are cool—like getting a pet hellhound for your twelfth birthday. Others, not so much—like not being trusted to learn magic because you might use it to take revenge on an annoying neighbor.

All Nic Blake wants is to be a powerful Manifestor like her dad. But before she has a chance to convince him to teach her the gift, a series of shocking revelations and terrifying events launch Nic and two friends on a hunt for a powerful magic tool she’s never heard of…to save her father from imprisonment for a crime she refuses to believe he committed.

A Rover’s Story

By Jasmine Warga

Available as a book, CD audiobook, Playaway, ebook, and digital audiobook.

Summary: Meet Resilience, a Mars rover determined to live up to his name.

Res was built to explore Mars. He was not built to have human emotions. But as he learns new things from the NASA scientists who assemble him, he begins to develop human-like feelings. Maybe there’s a problem with his programming…

Human emotions or not, launch day comes, and Res blasts off to Mars, accompanied by a friendly drone helicopter named Fly. But Res quickly discovers that Mars is a dangerous place filled with dust storms and giant cliffs. As he navigates Mars’s difficult landscape, Res is tested in ways that go beyond space exploration.

As millions of people back on Earth follow his progress, will Res have the determination, courage—and resilience—to succeed… and survive?

Silverwing: The Graphic Novel

By Kenneth Oppel & Christopher Steininger

Available as a book.

Summary: Shade is a young Silverwing bat, the runt of his colony. But he’s determined to prove himself on the long, dangerous winter migration to Hibernaculum, millions of wingbeats to the south. When he becomes separated from the other bats during a fierce storm, he must undertake the most incredible journey of his young life.

The Greystone Secrets #1: The Strangers

By Margaret Peterson Haddix & Anne Lambelet

Available as a book, CD audiobook, Playaway, ebook, and digital audiobook.

Summary: What makes you you?

The Greystone kids thought they knew. Chess has always been the protector over his younger siblings, Emma loves math, and Finn does what Finn does best—acting silly and being adored. They’ve been a happy family, just the three of them and their mom.

But everything changes when reports of three kidnapped children reach the Greystone kids, and they’re shocked by the startling similarities between themselves and these complete strangers. The other kids share their same first and middle names. They’re the same ages. They even have identical birthdays. Who, exactly, are these strangers?

Before Chess, Emma, and Finn can question their mom about it, she takes off on a sudden work trip and leaves them in the care of Ms. Morales and her daughter, Natalie. But puzzling clues left behind lead to complex codes, hidden rooms, and a dangerous secret that will turn their world upside down.

Squished

By Megan Wagner Lloyd & Michelle Mee Nutter

Available as a book and ebook.

Summary: Eleven-year-old Avery Lee loves living in Hickory Valley, Maryland. She loves her neighborhood, school, and the end-of-summer fair she always goes to with her two best friends. But she’s tired of feeling squished by her six siblings! They’re noisy and chaotic and the younger kids love her a little too much. All Avery wants is her own room — her own space to be alone and make art. So she’s furious when Theo, her grumpy older brother, gets his own room instead, and her wild baby brother, Max, moves into the room she already shares with her clinging sister Pearl! Avery hatches a plan to finally get her own room, all while trying to get Max to sleep at night, navigating changes in her friendships, and working on an art entry for the fair. And when Avery finds out that her family might move across the country, things get even more complicated.

The Vanquishers

By Kalynn Bayron

Available as a book, ebook, and digital audiobook.

Summary: Malika “Boog” Wilson and her best friends have grown up idolizing The Vanquishers, a group of heroic vampire hunters who wiped out the last horde of the undead decades ago. Nowadays, most people don’t take even the most basic vampire precautions–the days of garlic wreaths and early curfews long gone–but Boog’s parents still follow the old rules, much to her embarrassment.

When a friend goes missing, Boog isn’t sure what to think. Could it be the school counselor, Mr. Rupert, who definitely seems to be hiding something? Or could it be something more dangerous? Boog is determined to save her friend, but is she ready to admit vampires might not be vanquished after all?

No one ever expected the Vanquishers to return, but if their town needs protection from the undead, Boog knows who to call.

The Wolf Wilder

By Katherine Rundell & Gelrev Ongbico

Available as a book and ebook.

Summary: Feodora and her mother live in the snowbound woods of Russia, in a house full of food and fireplaces. Ten minutes away, in a ruined chapel, lives a pack of wolves. Feodora’s mother is a wolf wilder, and Feo is a wolf wilder in training. A wolf wilder is the opposite of an animal tamer: it is a person who teaches tamed animals to fend for themselves, and to fight and to run, and to be wary of humans.

When the murderous hostility of the Russian Army threatens her very existence, Feo is left with no option but to go on the run. What follows is a story of revolution and adventure, about standing up for the things you love and fighting back. And, of course, wolves.

Rules

• Each team has a Team Manager. The Manager can be a family member, teacher, or high school student.
• 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.
• The Battle Moderator will ask each question twice.
• There are 3 rounds with 1 question from each book.
• Teams have 30 seconds to write down their answers.
• Up to 5 points are awarded for each answer.