Battle of the Books is a round-robin style competition where teams of students answer questions about books from the official Battle of the Books list. Teams are challenged to answer each question with the correct book title and author in a fun and rewarding environment.
The 2026 battle will be held on Saturday, March 14 starting at 8 a.m.
Westside Middle School, 8601 Arbor Street
The event will take place in the morning with teams starting to arrive after 8:00 a.m. The event should end by 11 a.m., but may be followed by tiebreaker rounds as necessary.
Teams consist of 3-5 students. At most 4 students may compete in any round.
Each team will participate in 4 rounds of the competition.
Students form teams of 3-5 readers. Since this is a team competition, individual students do not have to read all the books on the list. Many teams divide the books up among the students so that each reader is responsible for 3 or 4 books. Some students do read all the books.
In the past, between 55 and 60 teams, with more than 200 students representing all 10 elementary schools, have signed up to participate in the Battle of the Books!
Each team needs a team sponsor to register them. The team sponsor is the contact person for all communications from the Battle of the Books organizing committee. They are also responsible for chaperoning their team on the day of the battle.
Registration will be available on this website in September 2026
Westside's Battle of the Books is open to all Westside students in grades 4-6.
No, the battle is only open to students in the Westside school district.
Yes, as long as all team members are in grades 4-6, attending a Westside elementary school, your team can have a mixture of students from different grades.
Yes, as long as each team member goes to a Westside elementary school, your team can have a mixture of students from different schools.
Questions are given alternately to the teams. A team has 20 seconds to answer their question with the book's title and author. One student from each team is the designated reporter. Teams receive one point each for the correct full title and correct full author name.
Since this is a round-robin competition, there will no steals. If a team misses a question, the other team cannot receive points for knowing the correct answer.