Wrap-Up: Book Fight!

So in case you haven’t been following me on Twitter or Tumblr, I’ve been hosting my first ever Book Battle at my library. The original dates were March 1 – April 5, but I miscalculated a bit and redid my posters so that the battle ended with the end of the month:

I made brackets, and every week I made new ballots. I pulled all the books, movies, and Playaways related to the books and put them on display. Weekly prizes were books I culled from donations, and the grand prize is the victorious book (or books, depending- if it was a 2-3 book series, I could swing that from my programming money, but if it was a huge series, not so much)….

I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I was going to get- my teens can be hit or miss sometimes. Self-directed things relating to FOOD, absolute hit. Anything else has been iffy….. So imagine my surprise when I kept getting more and MORE and MORE entries.

Starting Display

 First week, I had 10. Not really bad, considering. Second week, which was our Spring Break week, I had 21. And it was going along relatively predictable lines- Hunger Games vs Divergent, Vampire Academy vs Boy Nobody, Wicked Lovely vs Prophecy, and The Testing vs City of Bones.

Week Three

 Then Week three hit, and I got 36 entries. THIRTY-SIX. I didn’t miscount. The teens weren’t messing with me, or with the contest. They had gotten into it, and I was hearing debates about the books- why this one was better than that one, and why Tris and Four should beat out Nobody, and how Kira would kick Cia’s ass. (They don’t censor around me when we’re alone- when in mixed company, yes.)

Final Week

If you do not have this series in your collection, add it.

Filed under: book fight, Ellen Oh, Self Directed Programming