Questions

For regular competition battles, the first 9 questions are normal questions and the last question is a bonus question. Super bonus questions may or may not be included-- if they are, one of the normal questions is replaced with a super bonus question. Scoring doesn't change.

The Readers' Celebration Battle between the top two teams is entirely bonus style questions.

"Normal" Questions (most questions)

Normal questions begin with “In which Battle of the Books book…?” and the answer is the title and the author(s) of the book (and illustrator if applicable)  the number of the book on the numbered book list provided.  We abbreviate Battle of the Books with B.O.B.

A few examples:

Question: In which B.O.B. book did a wolf claim to have sneezed?

Correct Answer: The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by A. Wolf  by Scieska and Smith  "Book 2"

Question: In which B.O.B. book did a guy grow tomatoes to impress a girl?

Correct Answer: Seedfolks by Fleischman  "Book 21"

Question: In which B.O.B. book does a boy feel ordinary inside?

Correct Answer: Wonder by Palacio  "Book 4"

Bonus Questions

The last question of every battle will be a free response question. All questions in the Readers' Celebration Round will be free response as well. We call these "bonus" questions.

A few examples:

Question: In the book Running Out of Time by Haddix, from what disease are the people in Jessie’s town dying?

Correct Answer: Diphtheria

Question: In the book James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, what object ends up killing James' two aunts?

Correct Answer: The peach

Super Bonus Questions

This type of question may or may not be a part of the competition. They are a little harder to write, but we have liked throwing them in if we can. The question is in the format "Name two B.O.B. books where..." and the answer is TWO book numbers from the numbered book list. Sometimes there are more than 2 possible answers that would be considered correct, but the team will only need to name 2 of the books. (Note: no authors/illustrators will need to be named for this type of question)

A few examples:

Super Bonus: Name two B.O.B. books where a child likes to create comics.

Correct Answer: Guts and Harbor Me   "Book 3 and Book 17"

Super Bonus: Name two B.O.B. books where most words in the book are written in capital letters.

Correct Answer: Guts and The Cardboard Kingdom  "Book 3 and Book 25"

These questions tend to be more difficult to write because the answer should only exist in 2 or 3 of the books. But they also inspire some great discussion. 

From Where Questions May Be Taken

• Questions CANNOT come from: the book jacket, dedication, table of contents, and index. 

• Questions CAN be asked from illustrations of books, such as, what a character is doing in the illustration or the kind of media used to create the illustrations: watercolor, sketches, photos, etc. This type of question is to encourage the students to look more closely at the illustrations and the role they play in communicating the author’s ideas and contributing to the overall tone of the book.  Questions about the illustrations can come from any of the books. An equal number of picture book questions per battle per team will be asked in each round of the battles.

Who writes the questions for the actual competition?

A group of volunteers, who also serve as judges for the competition (in case any answers are contested), put together questions for the battles. They come up with WAY more questions than what are used for the battles, then together sort through them to reword and pick the highest quality questions to be used. 

Teams are highly encouraged to practice writing questions for their own practice battles. It's helpful to think like a question-writer!