TMS students compete in book challenge

The Challenge of the Books was held at the armory last Wednesday with students from Thermopolis Middle School taking fifth with their record and third with their points.

Challenge of the Books is a contest for middle school students who love to read and they are expecting to host about seven other schools for the competition.

A list of 12 books, which come from the Soaring Eagle and Indian Paintbrush nominee lists, are given to the children to read each August. The students then read each of the books with an emphasis on remembering the content of each book.

Then, in competition, the students are given either a direct quote from a book or a reference and they have 30 seconds to brainstorm and respond with the title of the book and the author. If the team answers incorrectly, their opponent has a chance to answer and receive points.

The team with the best record at the end of the competition is declared the winner.

At TMS, once the students have read the books, they meet periodically and discuss the books as well as do practice rounds similar to the format of the competition.

Teams participating this year along with TMS were Worland, Powell, Riverside/Cloud Peak, Lovell, Greybull and Burlington.

For Thermopolis, there was one lone eighth grader, Spencer Calhoun, who was joined by seventh graders Brianna Lackey, Elizabeth Peterson, Claire Simpson and Julia Quintanilla as well as fifth graders Alix Sorenson, Sadie Martinez and Dean Bihr.