District 63’s Stevenson School triumphs in book ‘Battle’
By Cathryn Gran cgran@pioneerlocal.com January 30, 2012 1:46PM
Stevenson students Sarah Choi, Anooj Naik, Harshitha Padiyar and Alyssa Tintori confer over an answer. | Joe Cyganowski~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 3, 2012 8:01AM
The Morton Grove Public Library team held its own against Niles Public Library in the latest installment of the Battle of the Books.
“It was a true underdog story,” said Brenda Glenn, Morton Grove’s Youth Services librarian and school liaison.
Jerusalem Lutheran was the MGPL champ, competing against Stevenson School, which represented the Niles library.
The final score was Stevenson with 132 and Jerusalem Lutheran School with 100.
Glenn called East Maine School District 63 a “Battle of the Books” powerhouse.
Sarah Spatosky, Niles Public Library’s Youth Services librarian and school liaison, said the library has been participating in the voluntary reading-incentive program since 1979.
“It’s nice to partner with the Morton Grove Library,” she said.
The tournament, which ended Jan. 11, was the Morton Grove library’s second time participating, Glenn said.
“It goes back and forth,” Spatosky said. “It’s not always the same schools.”
This year the four-member team from Jerusalem Lutheran School bested teams from Park View School and East Prairie School to compete against Stevenson School. The Des Plaines school had nearly 30 members.
Battle of the Books is open to students in fourth grade through eighth grade.
“There’s 60 books on the reading list, and the kids answer questions based on what they read,” Glenn explained. “Every year, 20 books come off the list and 20 new ones are added.”
During the contest each team had to name the title and the author based on one- to three-sentence snippets from the books.
Glenn and Spatosky alternated between reading questions and keeping score.
Jerusalem School student Jonas Banes was not very happy with the outcome, but his older brother, Isaac, was able to mitigate the loss.
“You should be very proud,” Isaac told his younger sibling.
Eventually a smile crossed Jonas’ face.
Even though his team didn’t win the tournament, Jonas said, “I did enjoy all the books I read.”
Isaac said he, too, loved reading all the books.
“And I look forward to next year’s competition,” he added.
Fellow team member Brigid Williams said the competition had its challenges.
“But it was really awesome,” she said. “It was easy getting through it.”
Luke Ruehrdanz, also on the Jerusalem team, said he not only enjoyed reading the books, but also was a bit surprised the team made it to the finals.
“I didn’t think we would get this far,” he said. “It was a lot of fun, and the books were amazing.”
Coordinating the team effort was Dina Naumann, who also teaches first and second grades, as well as serving as the school music director.
“I was really impressed with all the reading knowledge,” Glenn added.
Coaching the Stevenson team were Ellen Beresheim and Christine Douglass.
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