- Hey everybody, I'm Doug.
That's Connor and this is the Bethel
School District Presents podcast.
Connor, I'm gonna leave you here to your own devices.
Actually I'm heading over to
Catherine G. Johnson Elementary School.
Gonna chat with their Battle of the Books team.
But before I do,
and speaking of books sir, what have you been reading
that you would recommend to our dear, dear listeners?
- Well, that sounds fun, Doug.
And you know me, I'm a bit of a biblio file,
so always got a good book review in the hopper for you.
This time I'm gonna give you short story writer by the name
of George Saunders, absolute genius.
And I'm gonna give you his first book.
It's called Civil Warland in Bad Decline.
Pick it up, read it, study it, love it.
So what about you Doug? What you been reading?
- Well, inspired by Netflix, which is where I go
for my book recommendations, apparently uh,
the new show Ripley is coming out.
I was excited to see that and
before it came out I read The Talented Mr.
Ripley, which I'd never read before. Great book.
The start of a series, which honestly I read the first
chapter of the second book.
Not super interested in that,
but I really do recommend Talented Mr.
Ripley. Great, great. I was gonna say movie.
It's also a movie and a show, but really good book.
- Yeah. Patricia Highsmith, one of the best to ever do it.
- Do what? - Work for Netflix.
- . I love it.
Well, like I said before, I'm gonna get outta here.
You'll hear our trademarked whooshing sound
that will transport me magically.
Over to Catherine G. Johnson Elementary School.
I'm sitting in the Catherine G. Johnson Library
with Lisa Doyle, teacher, librarian and Battle of the Books.
Coach, would you call yourself? Yes.
A slow nod for the podcast. Audience always translates well.
. So this is your seventh year
leading a Battle of the Books team.
Is that right? That's correct.
And how many years here at Catherine G. Johnson?
- This is our third year at Catherine G. Johnson.
First year we brought home the championship trophy
and second year we were championship defenders.
- Strong start. Tell me about your team this year.
What's the ratio of veterans to newcomers? I think
- We've got, it's about half in half
in fifth grade this year.
Fourth graders are all new.
Um, of course because this is a fourth
and fifth grade opportunity, a lot of kids I think
after watching last year decided
to step up and give it a shot. I
- Love it.
So really we're just gonna talk for a minute here
and then we're gonna talk to, I'm gonna say a few
of your students, but there's a lot of folks in the room.
So I think we might actually split 'em up into groups and,
and chat with just about everybody here, maybe 12
or 13 by the time we're done.
I'm excited about that. But for people
that haven't had a chance to watch a Battle
of the Books competition, can you tell us what it is
and then how you all prepare for it?
- The Battle of the Books is a voluntary
district-wide reading program and each school
that participates will um,
usually hold a battle at their school to narrow it down
to one team that goes onto district.
- How big are the teams? - The teams are
three to four students.
Okay. And they're fourth and fifth graders.
Um, the purpose is to read, um,
nominated books while preparing for an engaging competition.
- Nice. And these are a very diverse group of books.
Can you tell us about the selection process?
Are you involved in that as a,
that all librarians on deck kind of thing? Yes.
- All the librarians get involved in choosing the
Battle of the Books list.
We choose books from uh, lists of books
that are already nominated for Children's Choice Awards
in our state, the Sasquatch list, the Towner list.
And um, this next year we're actually gonna include the
Otter List, which is stands for
O-T-T-E-R is our time to enjoy reading.
I love it. And we also would, um, usually choose one
of the Newberry, either the medal winner or the Honor.
- I love it. And it just, it really gives students an
opportunity to expand their reading horizons.
I get stuck myself and you know,
you get in a murder mystery thing
and you do that for like six months.
This really helps them to branch out
and really discover new genres, new topics, new new authors.
- Exactly right. I mean it forces me to read
outside my favorite genre too.
So it's a great way to find out what else is out there from
what you're stuck reading in.
Even if you're, you know,
you don't even wanna leave your genre if you sign up
for Battle of the Books, you don't have a choice.
You get to choose another book. .
- I love it. Well you mentioned your favorite genre.
Let's hold on that. I wanna find out what
that is at the end of the show.
But right now let's bring some kids in
and let's do a little podcast.
Magic. If you'll help me,
we'll both snap our fingers and you'll disappear.
And our first group of three will appear here at the table
as if by magic in 3, 2, 1.
We actually have a lot of students
that wanted to sit down with us today.
So this is our first group of three students
and we have lots of students after this
because Battle of the Books is a very popular activity here
at Catherine G. Johnson Elementary School.
Let's go around the table, everybody here is in fifth grade.
Tell me your name and your favorite place to read.
- I'm Aaliyah and my favorite place
to read is probably the library or in a, just a cozy spot.
My name is Donya and I love to read at the beach.
My name is Danica and I like to read in my bedroom.
- Excellent. So you all are on the battle of the Books team.
Is it anybody's first year on Battle of the Books
or have you all done it before? All
- Done it before?
Yeah, I did it last year. So same
- , excellent bunch of veterans on the team here.
What would you say is the hardest part about practicing
for Battle of the Books?
- I'd say the hardest part about practicing for Battle
of the Books is knowing that there are a lot of other teams
that are just as good as you.
And the books are really good,
but sometimes you might forget 'em.
And so it might be frustrating during the competition.
- Danika, how about you? What's the hardest part about
practicing for Battle of the the
- Books?
The hardest part of practicing for Battle
of the Books is trying to get the questions correct, trying
to memorize what's happening in the book
since there's so many books.
- Absolutely. How many books total are there?
Does anybody 15. 15. Oh, everybody knew .
I love that. So 15, everybody has to read five.
Do you divvy up who's gonna read
which five at the beginning? No. No,
- We just kind of read 'em.
Yeah, sometimes we do, depending on like our reading level
and which ones look the most interesting to us, we kind
of plan it out, but sometimes we kinda just go for a range.
- So I'm gonna ask this question of all of you this morning.
Can you give us a book recommendation
for people to read this summer? Donya, how about you
- Probably do Fish - Die?
I would recommend the Land of Stories.
It's about these two siblings.
Their grandma is a fairy godmother
and they go around in the fairytale books
where there's all the princesses and Little Red Riding Hood
and they're basically adventuring in the book.
My recommendation is probably one of the Battle of books,
it's called A Kind of Spark.
It's a really good book about a girl who has autism
and gets made fun of because of it,
but then learns a valuable lesson.
- I love it. That's a great one.
Well I'm gonna let you all go
'cause we have a lot of other
students that are gonna participate.
But before I let you go, every time I talk to a student,
whether they're in kindergarten,
whether they're a senior in high school, I always like
to find out what they want to do when they grow up.
Do you have any thoughts on that yet?
I know you're in fifth grade, but closing in on middle
school here very soon.
So any thoughts about post-graduation plans?
- I wanna be an engineer.
- An engineer. What inspired that?
- I always kind of like building
and I kind of wanna solve more problems in the world.
- I love that. That's a great, great job
and a great reason. How about you?
- I wanna be an engineering businesswoman.
- Wow, tell me about that.
- I really love building and I love having a business
to start off with, making some money at a
young, a very young age.
- . Fantastic. That's awesome.
Two engineers at the table. And how about you
- Don't count me as the third,
but um, , it's kind of random,
but I've always wanted to be a nurse who takes care
of babies especially.
- Oh wow, that's fantastic. What inspired that job?
- Um, since I have three younger siblings,
I've always had a really good like knack with babies.
I've always made them really comfortable
and I thought I'd be nice to work
with them all day, every day. 'cause I love them.
- I love that. Very cool. All great jobs.
My mom was actually a nurse for many,
many years, so that is fantastic.
A great job. So now we need to magically snap our fingers
and we'll do that on the count of three
and we will make, uh, you all disappear.
And our next three reappear in 3, 2, 1.
Let's all and our second group of students has arrived.
We're gonna go around the table.
Tell me your name and your favorite
place to read. We'll start with you.
- My name's Zoe and my favorite place
to read is probably the county
- Library.
My name is Sydney and my favorite place
to read is in a quiet classroom.
- My name is Amelia
and my favorite place to read is in a nice,
like a small area where I'm by myself
and it's cozy and warm.
- Perfect. I love it.
A lot of, a lot
of cozy feelings from places we like to read.
I think if some that's a, that's a trend I'm noticing here.
. So we talked a little bit about Battle of the books
with our last group with you all.
I wanna know what really kind of inspired you
to join Battle of the Books.
- I like the general feeling of
completing a book.
It's like an accomplishment every time you complete one.
I like reading and like my favorite feeling about it is like
you can get uh, trapped inside a book
and uh, read for so long
but it only feels like a couple minutes.
- Yeah, time can just slip on by
as you as you get into the book.
I love that. That's awesome. Like we did
with our last group, can you all give us a book
recommendation that you think
everybody should read this summer?
- I think people should read any Lynn Painter book
specifically the do over that was my favorite by her.
There's this girl and it's on Valentine's Day
and she's redoing the same day over and over again.
Oh. But like nobody, nobody's redoing it.
It's just all for her.
- Love it. Oh, I love that kind of story.
That's fun. How about you?
- Um, probably one of the Harry Potter
- Books, one of the Harry Potter books.
People would probably have started at the beginning I would
guess, but I'm guessing you've read all of them.
Which one was your favorite?
- The Chamber of Secrets.
- Yeah. Great series. The Harry Potter series.
So before we switch to our third group, I need to know
what you all are thinking about doing after you graduate.
- I would probably wanna be like a
first or second grade teacher.
- A teacher. That's a great career.
I love that. And how about you?
- I don't really have that planned out yet,
but I always said I wanted
to be a psychologist or teach ethics.
- Wow. Okay. What, what inspired that for you?
- I don't know, it just seems fun. I don't
- Know.
I love it sometimes that's all you need to get started.
That's good. And finally I
- Have different ideas of who I wanna be, like um,
being a chef or being a teacher.
- Both of those are great career paths.
Thanks all of you for sharing your books and your careers
and your thoughts on battle of the books.
We're gonna all snap our fingers on the count of three
and get our third group of students in here in 3, 2, 1.
We're here with our third group of three students.
Everybody. Let's go around again.
Give me your name and your favorite place
to read. We'll start here.
- My name is Jaylyn
and my favorite place
to read is probably my room sitting on my bed.
Um, my name's Marcus. Probably a classroom.
My name is Lauren and I like to read and my bedroom
or a library.
- Okay, excellent. So for our third group,
I have a interesting question for you all.
They say, I don't know who they is, but they say it.
They say you can't judge a book by its cover.
Were there any books on this year's battle of the books list
that you thought you wouldn't like because of the cover
but then you read and actually enjoyed?
We'll start with you. Jalyn.
- Probably the insiders 'cause I really judged it
'cause I was like really debating on like lots of books
- Because you each have to read five books for a battle
of books and so you're really trying to pick your five
and a lot of it's based on the cover.
Maybe the little description on the back.
So the insiders, how about you Marcus?
- Probably May of the robot. It didn't seem
that good when I first looked at it,
but it was such a great book
- Really.
Okay. Give us a book recommendation
for students to read this summer.
We'll start with you Jaylyn.
- I'm thinking about out of my mind.
It's about a girl that's autistic
and she has like, she can't walk or talk
or do anything really by herself.
- Probably res dogs are May of the robot,
probably may of the robot more.
It's basically this girl loves engineering her whole life
and then she gets sent to fifth grade,
it's like her last year in elementary school.
And she gets like the strict teacher
and then she like goes to the store of her best friend.
Like it's this guy named Mac.
And then he had a son who made a robot
and then she inherits the robot
and like she goes on like adventure
with the robot that she found.
- Wow. Okay. That one sounds, that one sounds good.
And that one has a cover that you would judge it by too.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. And finally Lauren,
- I'm gonna say Baraka beats
because it's like, it has a lot of drama in it.
- Okay. And - It's, it has a lot of hooks.
- Interesting. A couple of laughs around the room too.
Is that a favorite of anybody else around here?
Oh, we got one in the one in the back there too.
Oh, and you too. Excellent. Well thank you all very much.
Our last question of course is what do you want
to do when you grow up and graduate high school?
Let's go from, let's go backwards this time.
Lauren, you go first. I wanna
- Work at a zoo.
- At a zoo because - I love animals. Like
- Puffins are my absolute favorite.
If I could work with puffins all day, I would not be here.
I love the polar bear. I love polar bears. The polar bears.
Oh yeah, I've, I've seen them jump in the water down there.
It's amazing. Uh, Marcus how about you?
- So I want to either like be in sports like Emma B or NFL
or a producer, but most likely that's not gonna work.
So I want to be a lawyer.
- A lawyer. Wow. Lawyer's. Your backup plan. . Yes.
I love that. That's fantastic.
Jaylyn, we'll close you out for group three.
- I would say like a doctor or a lawyer. Mainly a doctor.
'cause I like helping people.
- I love the theme on this team.
A lot of folks want to help other people.
I think that's fantastic. Alright, group three.
I'm gonna have to say goodbye to you.
Let's all snap our fingers on the count of three. 1, 2, 3.
And now with me is our fourth and final group.
So we're gonna go around the table.
I'll have you say your name and your favorite place to read.
- My name is Chloe and my favorite place
to read is in my bedroom, mostly on my bed.
My name is Ele
and my favorite place to read is probably
at the park in my bedroom.
My name is Austin and my favorite place
to read is probably when I have a good view of the outside
or when I read outside.
My name is Eleanor
and my favorite place to read is probably on the balcony
of my beach house.
- Fantastic. I love the idea of reading outside.
I actually have allergies so I don't read
outside in the springtime because every book makes me cry
because , because
of the allergies and all the fallen.
So the question I have for the four
of you is about the competition of Battle of the books.
Now two of you, ele
and Eleanor have not competed in Battle of the Books before.
This is your first year.
And the other two of you, Austin
and Chloe, you have same question for all of you.
What makes you the most nervous going into competition? It's
- Probably about the questions.
'cause I feel like I read the books,
but I always reread all of 'em last minute
because I feel like all the questions, that's
how they word it kind of.
- For sure. Those questions can be very tricky.
And especially with 15 books
of information swimming around in your head.
I can't imagine e it's your first year.
What are you thinking going into Battle of Books?
What's what's making you nervous?
- Probably memorizing the books
because I'll have 'em all memorized,
but then when I sit down
and like going to answer the question,
I'll be like, I I don't know this.
- And I'm sure you've heard you're gonna be in a big room.
There's gonna be students from all
of our elementary schools there.
So it's a nerve wracking situation for sure.
Austin, how about you?
- The nervous thing that probably happens when
during like the competition is all the stress
of all the people watching you while you're trying
to answer the questions, which makes you forget the answers
of, or like try to remember the questions for the answers.
- Absolutely. And it, it looks
like you agree with that, Eleanor?
- Yeah. Um, I think it's probably trying
to memorize the books.
Uh, like I've read seven of them so far
and I think like with all the people staring at you,
like you'll probably forget all of the answers to the book.
- I, I can't even imagine sitting out there with all
that pressure on you trying to remember.
And these aren't easy questions either.
It's not like who's the main character of this book.
They get, there are some pretty detailed
questions that you have to remember.
Some real specific things. Let's go around backwards now.
Eleanor, we'll start with you.
What is the book recommendation you would give
for students to read this summer?
- Uh, my recommendation is probably this book called Wish.
I Got it for Christmas from my aunt
and it's about this girl, she's had family problems
and she moves into like an oasis to live
with her aunt and her uncle.
And she makes wishes all the time.
Like her sisters told her all these
different ways to make wishes.
And she's wished for the same thing for um, many years.
One day she finds this stray dog and she names him Wishbone
and she does all of these ways to catch him
with like traps she's created out of material she can find.
- Wow. I love the story with the dog in it, that's for sure.
Austin, how about you?
- Um, for people to read this summer,
it was a last year battle of a book.
It was called Midnight at the Barclay Hotel.
There's like ghosts in it. It stated be haunted.
It's just like very interesting.
A lot of twists inside of it.
- Melanie, how about you? What you recommend to everybody?
- It's called Ratchets Journal.
It's about this girl named like her nickname's ratchet.
Um, because her father, he has like this garage business
and he like fixes cars and like she always helps him out.
- Excellent. Okay, that one sounds good too.
Chloe, yours is gonna be the last recommendation
from students on today's podcast.
So what book would you recommend?
- I would recommend a book
that was also last year's battle of the book.
It was called From the Desk of Zoe, Washington.
It's about a girl who found out that her dad was in prison
and she also likes to cook like me.
And I just think it's really cool
how she finds out about her dad
and I think it was really cool.
- Wow, that one sounds really good too. Okay.
A lot of great books around the table.
Before I let you go, we are gonna find out
what everybody is thinking about.
This is, I'm not locking you in here, you don't have
to do this, but what are you thinking today that you'd like
to do after you graduate high school?
What kind of job are you looking at getting?
And we'll go clockwise this time.
So Chloe, we'll start with you.
- I'd want to be a co chef, like a, because I like cooking
but I don't like cooking alone, so I like working
with someone while cooking.
So I think I'd work as like a good, like co chef.
- I love that. I love cooking too.
And I love cooking with somebody
that I think that's a lot more fun.
You can put some music on
and have a fun time making up some cool recipes.
Ellen, you're next. Um,
- When I grow up I want, I really wanna write books
for a living and be an author.
'cause I just, I really, I love reading,
but then I also like love writing
and I love like making up my own stories and stuff.
- I love that. And there are so many opportunities
for writing to become a career for you.
I think that's fantastic. Great choice. Austin.
- What I want to be when I grow up is a
musician or an actor.
- Okay. Tell me musician, what kind of musician?
- I wanna, I wanna be a violinist.
- Excellent. Do you play violin already? I presume? Yeah.
Very good. Would you wanna perform with a symphony
or you'd wanna be in like a,
a rock band or something like that?
- Probably in a symphony. - And the other thing you said
was actor, any actors that you look up to
as kind of your, your role model.
- Um, my old time favorite actors are probably a Jack Black
and Jen Ortega.
- Love it. Yeah, I'm a big Jack Black fan myself.
Eleanor, what are you looking to do on after graduation?
- Um, after graduation,
I probably wanna be like a Disney character designer.
- Wow, that's cool. Oh, an imagineer kind of, uh, job. Yeah.
Oh, that's fantastic. What inspired that?
- I've always loved drawing like Mickey Mouse
and all, um, like Disney characters.
- I love that. What a creative bunch we have
here in group four.
Thank you all for joining us at the count of three,
we're gonna snap our fingers.
You all disappear
and I'm gonna have your battle of the Books leader come back
to close us out in 3, 2, 1.
Well, teacher librarian Lisa Stoll
and I are back at the table.
The library is empty. All the students have gone to lunch.
And we are left here with two questions on the table
and one compliment.
First an amazing group of students
that you have on your team this year.
All well-Spoken Big Dreamers
and really invested in this competition.
I think that's fantastic. So nicely done.
You, we talked at the top of the show,
you mentioned your favorite genre.
What is your favorite genre to read?
- My favorite genre is historical fiction. Fiction.
- Really? Okay. So why, uh, why so what draws you to that?
- I like to read about, uh, real events.
It's kind of a gateway into learning more history.
If, if I'm reading a book that takes place in a a time
that happened or in a place that exists,
it makes me have more questions
and then I do my own research
and learn, learn more about that place in that time. I
- Love that genre too.
I actually just read a book called Ireland by Frank Delaney.
It's about a traveling storyteller who goes through,
I think it's 1930s
or forties, Ireland might even be fifties.
And he tells stories about the old days in Ireland
and it makes, it made me Google, you know,
I I'd finish a chapter and be like, was that true?
And some of it was, and some of it was
extended truth kind of thing.
Is is there a book you recommend for people
that are interested in that, in that genre?
- I'd recommend for the fourth
and fifth graders, uh,
a book called The War That Saved My Life.
And that was actually a battle book years ago, maybe,
maybe eight years ago or nine years ago.
And it is an amazing story about, um,
world War II in England
where the kids get sent away to the country.
And I like getting kids turned onto that book
because it, I can connect it with Narnia
and those other genres too.
- Absolutely. Oh yeah, the, the backstory
of Narnia and CS Lewis and everything.
Mm-Hmm. . Very interesting.
Let's close things out.
I got so many book recommendations for the kids.
I love that. For the adults listening for their kids.
What are some books you recommend for students this summer?
And let's have you recommend a book for grownups too
- For this summer.
Um, I'm gonna stick with the battle of the books.
That list for next year is gonna be out
by the time the kids are doing the district battle.
Excellent. So stay tuned for that list.
It's gonna be awesome. And my adult book recommendation is
to pick up the Newberry winner this year.
It's written by Dave Eggers.
A lot of adults may recognize that author
as an adult author too.
So he happened
to win the Newberry medal this year, which is awesome.
The book that he won the Newberry
for is called The Eyes and the Impossible.
And to get you hooked, you should
definitely check out the trailer. Oh,
- There's a book trailer.
- Book trailers now that cracks me up. I love it.
Well, great recommendations.
Thank you so much for working with us today
and having your students here.
Lisa Al, teacher, librarian and friend of the pod.
Thanks for joining us. Thank
- You.
- Wow. Well done Doug.
That was a lot of students
and boy were they excited about reading.
- It really was fun and big props to Lisa Dele
and thanks to her for letting us come over
and set up the podcasting machine
and chatting with all those amazing students.
If you want a full list of all the books
that they recommended and even the books
that Lisa recommended and the books Connor
and I recommended, rewind the podcast.
Start from the top and grab a pencil and paper
and you'll be better for it.
And we'll get another listen, which is all we're about here.
- Love it. Great advice as always, Doug.
See you next week, everybody.