The four District 202 high schools will participate in the inaugural Battle of the Books on March 26, 2025, at Plainfield High School-Central Campus, 24120 W. Fort Beggs, Drive.
Battle of the Books is a reading competition where teams read five Abraham Lincoln Award-nominated books and answer detailed questions about them during in-school competitions.
District 202 middle schools have hosted Battle of the Books competitions for more than a decade. Timber Ridge Middle School won the district’s middle school championship last month.
Lisa Marcum, District 202 Lead Media Specialist and media specialist at PHSCC, piloted the competition last year at her high school with 115 students who formed 26 teams.
Freshmen come to high school and are disappointed there is no Battle of the Books competition, she said.
“We want to continue the love of reading from middle school,” Marcum said. “It is so cool to see kids competing about reading.”
Battle of the Books also allows students to shine outside of an athletic arena.
Plainfield South, Plainfield North, and Plainfield East high schools each will send two teams to the high school finals at PHSCC.
About 75 teams at all four high schools competed in preliminary round
s to narrow the field to the final school teams.
District 202 middle school media center specialists were vital to helping create the high school competition counterpart, Marcum said.
Aggie Ferris, media specialist at Indian Trail Middle School, said it is important to remind students that reading and libraries can be fun and don’t need to be confined to only research when students get to high school.
“We teach children to love and value reading in elementary school and middle school with beautiful picture books, or emotionally compelling narratives, but when they get to high school, the emphasis is on informative texts,” Ferris said.
Statistics show a student’s love of reading starts to dwindle around high school, she said.
Marcum said that a high school Battle of the Books competition is a great way to reignite that love of reading and libraries.
The Plainfield Area Public Library and Tracey Vittorio, Teen Services Supervisor, also were instrumental in the high school competition, she added.