It’s that time already! Book Recommendations are open from 4/8/19 to 11/15/19.
What do we look for in a Battle Book?
- Student, teacher, and librarian recommendations.
- Compelling stories that grip the imagination.
- Strong protagonists who are diverse, complex, and relatable.
- Themes (or messages) that are worth thinking about and discussing.
- A variety of genres – it’s boring if we all read the kind of book all the time. We try to mainly promote interest in Young Adult books, but we’ve had all sorts in the past. You may want to review the list of all battle books here.
- Different reading levels and interests.
- Recent books. Most of our books have been published in the last 2-5 years, but occasionally we choose books that are more than that.
What disqualifies a book (not all GOOD books are BATTLE books).
- Every year, amazing books are recommended that we have to take out of the running because they don’t “lend themselves” to trivia questions. For example, poetry is so emotional and so full of figurative speech that it’s hard to nail down concrete facts from them to include in a competition setting.
- Books that are taught in LCPS in a whole-class setting cannot be battle books.
- A book can be too old. There is nothing wrong with the classics, or books that are over ten years old, but we prefer to promote books that haven’t been out long so that we keep our titles “fresh.”
- Length. We have long books all the time in Battle, but we try not to have more than one or two tomes in the bunch.
- Overly adult themes. Since our readers are teenagers, we know that they are mature enough to handle controversial material, but as teachers, we have a responsibility to endorse books that don’t provoke. It’s a difficult balance to strike.
- Other factors not outlined above. Some things can’t be easily categorized, but we promise to be as transparent as possible when we eliminate a book.