Teachers Get Into Book Battle Fun

A traditional student reading contest at Woodland School is taking a new turn, as the school's teachers teamed up to also take on the reading challenge.

According to school librarian Nancy Darby, who organizes the annual Battle of the Books for fourth- and fifth-graders at the school where the students participate in a knowledge quiz contest after reading the same 15 books between November and May.

"Last year, for the first time in the state of New Jersey, I held a Teacher Battle—and this year there were 27 staff members on four teams, competing," Darby said.

The teachers battled it out on June 10, and Darby the students were engrossed watching their teachers being quizzed on the same books they'd read. 

"Teacher teams burst into the gym, dancing to music and rallying the entire school audience," she said. "The teachers clearly demonstrated team spirit and entusiasm for reading by modeling the behavior."

Among the books read by the teachers were "Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians," "Becoming Naomi Leon," "Charlotte's Web,"  "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," "We'll Never Forget You, Roberto Clemente" and "Who Was Leonardo DaVinci?"

The four teams and teachers participating were the Bookworms (Philip Jones, Jeanne Vecchione, Amanda McGrath, Tiffany Pillard, Shannon O'Shea, Rita Brown, MaryPat Brown and Diane Bell), B-R-A-I-NYacs (Brian Kilroy, Diane Langworthy, Anita Brower, Stacey Modugno, Marilyn Brown and Rebecca Lostan), Rock Stars (Dr. Christopher Huss (principal), Christine Ryan, Jen Ronkiewicz, Nancy Braunstein, Nicole Panos and Lauren Valera) and the Toes-in-the-Sand (Adam Yenish, Linda Pepe, Suzanne Wisher, Dorothy Stolfi, Harriet Stambaugh, Kathy Brown and Jackie Gartner).