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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Readers 'Battle' at State Meet

By Laura Nesbitt /
Mountain View Telegraph
      Kenyon Aguilar, a sixth-grader at Mountainair Middle School, has been getting up at 5 a.m. three mornings in a row to get all 20 books on the book list read — even though reading them all is not a requirement to win.
       “It doesn’t matter how many books you read,” Kenyon said.
       “He’ll tell me about it if I don’t know the answer,” said Lexus Sheppard, one of Kenyon’s sixth-grade classmates.
       Aguilar, Sheppard, D’Andre Klade, Alex Nieto, Kourtney Nieto, Danielle Padilla, Sabrina Romero and Victor Zamora — the Mountainair team of students — all agreed that they were depending on a team effort to win.
       The youths were escorted by librarian Marion Shaw and middle school teachers Virginia Hinds and Theron Imlay.
       They travelled to Oñate High School in Las Cruces last Saturday on a school bus driven by Richard Shovelin to participate in the New Mexico Battle of the Books, a sport meet that encourages students to partner with other students they might not know.
       During the competition, students from the same school are split up into teams with other students from other schools.
       At the four-hour meet, the randomly selected teams are asked questions beginning with the phrase “in which book.” Teams must answer with the correct title and author.
       Students played three rounds, took a snack break and then finished with round four. At noon everyone gathered for a magic show and the awards presentation.
       Danielle, who is in the seventh grade, would like to be in the military when she grows up. So what good will reading be in her future plans?
       “I am learning how to study,” Danielle said about her experience in the Battle.
       Klade said her favorite book was “Touching Spirit Bear” by Ben Mikaelsen.
       And why did she enjoy the story? “He made it seem like it could really happen. There’s a kid who’s really mean and he gets sent away to an island. At the end of a year, he’s nicer,” Klade said.
   

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