No paper cuts, only winners in LPS Battle of the Books

The Lawton Public Schools Battle of the Books trophy will stay at Pat Henry Elementary School after the annual competition on March 14.

This year’s team, made up of Alex LaSorsa, Adriana Escalante and Charlie Price, bested 14 other teams during the hour-long competition at the Life Ready Center.

The three-person teams of students in grades three through five were tasked with identifying 20 quotes from 10 selected books they had all read. Not only did students have to identify the book the quote came from, they also had to identify the author of the book. Points were awarded for each correct answer. Students had one minute to confer with one another and write their answers on a whiteboard.

“The point is to foster a love of reading and make reading fun,” said Kris Burd, a member of the Battle of the Books committee.

Adriana Escalante, a member of the Pat Henry The Jag Smarties, said her winning team had been practicing with coach Debbie Morgan for several weeks.

“Every afternoon we would study in the library,” Escalante said. Their coach would pull up a quote and the students would identify the book and author. In addition to practicing at school, Escalante said she also practiced at home, timing herself. She said she read all the books twice and also scanned through them.

With all the preparation, Escalante said she was “eight out of 10” confident that her team would win the title for the second year in a row.

“I thought we were going to win a month ago. I had an awesome team,” she said. “It means a lot that we won twice in a row. Every team deserved to win, too.”