Announcements

The Battle of the Books was started in 2009, by school librarians Toni Isaac (Troy High) and Staci Vought (Troy Athens) within the Troy School District in Troy, Michigan. It was an instant hit with students eager to read the best of YA books of the year and vote for their favorite. During 2012-2013 school year the event expanded to include the public library, which now hosts the culminating event and supplies many copies of the nominees for students to check out with the help of Olivia Olson the Troy Public Library’s Teen Librarian.

During the 2014- 2015 school year, Mrs. Isaac and Mrs. Vought invited Mrs. Beth Jorgensen and Mrs. Klaudia Janek of the International Academy (the East campus of which is within the Troy School District) to participate with their school. The International Academy is a public school that is made up of about 20+ school districts and spread out over 3 campuses. The students belong to about 23 different public library systems within the Metro Detroit area. This move opened up the event to a much larger geographic community, bringing book lovers from 3 high schools together.

The Battle of the Books serves about 1200 IA + 2000 Troy High + 1700 Athens = 4900 high school students!

The event takes place on a Friday evening, when the public library is open only to the students who participated in the Battle of the Books program at their school. It features Skype sessions with 4 to 5 of the authors of the nominated books, a trivia tournament, raffles for readers, and food, of course. Each year a local author serves as the emcee for the event and has the opportunity to introduce themselves to a room full of avid readers. In 2014 the winner was announced during a Skype session with the winning author, Andrew Smith who won for his book Winger.

The books are selected over the summer by volunteer student readers from the various high schools and librarians who read and review dozens of books in order to find 10 titles for nomination. Barnes & Noble in Troy gives us suggestions for titles, set up a special display featuring our title choices, and host a special VIP tour for our top readers when we purchase titles for consideration for the NEXT year's BoB. Plus, and we often are put into contact with local authors willing to attend/emcee the event through our book store contact. Meetings take place bi-weekly at the Troy Public Library where they swap books, get new ones and talk about which were good and which were not. The selection process aims to find not only excellent books, but a variety of genres to appeal to a wide range of readers. In November student readers vote to choose the 10 books that make the final list.

The Battle of the Books is supported by the 4 school librarians, 1 public librarian, the administrators at Troy High, Troy Athens and International Academy, the English Departments at each school who support the event and give their class time to promote reading and the student library volunteers who help choose the books and plan the event.

This event encourages students to cultivate a love of reading, connects students with new ideas through books and is a school wide event for those students who choose to participate. It has been a very successful school and public library collaborative undertaking. There is a concentrated effort each year to choose diverse, new books that will appeal to many readers. Improving literacy is at the core of this idea, which contributes to the education of students in all subject areas.