F.A.Q.

Battle of the Books (BOB) is a regional competition where students form teams to read and study a specific set of novels over several months. They then participate in "Jeopardy-style" tournaments at various levels, starting at the building level and progressing to district, regional, and super regional competitions. The primary purpose of BOTB is to foster students’ love of reading by introducing them to books by acclaimed authors.

There are 5 grade bands available.  

• 1st & 2nd grade

• 3rd and 4th grade

• 5th and 6th grade

• 7th and 8th grade

• 9th through 12th grade

There is a maximum of 4 students per team.  You may have an alternate but the maximum team for competition is 4.

Yes

It depends on the team.  The most successful teams read the books multiple times and each team member reads all books.  However, there are lot os ways to do it.  Some teams read all the books but become an expert on 2 books.

You can find the book selection criteria here.

Participants suggest and vote on titles.  The top 30 titles are evaluated by the BOB committees for each grade band.  Each member created a collection of 8.  Finally, the BOB coordinator takes the book selection criteria and the collections created by each committee member and builds the final 8 titles for each grade band.

You must register your school in order to gain access to the practice questions.  You can do so here.

Contact the BOB Coordinator, Heather Turner hturner@ocmboces.org 

By registering your school you are signing up.  Do so here.

The Answer: We do not have official keywords. Students must write down recognizable keywords for both the Title and the Author of the book.

For example, if the book is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, acceptable keyword combinations might include "Chocolate Dahl" or "Charlie Roald."

• If a student writes the correct title but an incorrect author (e.g., "Charlie and Tolkien"), they will receive credit for the title only.

• If they write the correct author but the wrong title, no credit will be given for the title.

• If they list an incorrect author’s name, no credit will be given for the author.

The proctor plays a crucial role in ensuring the process runs smoothly. Spelling and capitalization do not count, but the answer must be recognizable by the proctor. Additionally, students must write something for both the title and the author. This prevents them from changing their responses after hearing other participants’ answers.