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| Quizmaster Wayne Mills travels the world conducting these quizzes |
Wow! Yesterday, I chugged up to the North London Heat of the Kids Lit Quiz with a carful of authors -
Keren David (When I Was Joe),
Fiona Dunbar (Kitty Slade Mysteries) and
Sita Brahmachari (Artichoke Hearts).
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| Authors United - Fiona, Sophia and Sita. Dave Cousins was revising secretly in his car. They beat the children by one point! |
There were 28 teams competing, in addition to two author teams - Authors United (Fiona, Sita, Dave Cousins and
Sophia Bennett) and the Author All Stars (
Josh Lacey,
Echo Freer,
Steve Feasey and
Sam Osman).
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| Authors All Stars (or, judging by their score, All Scarred?)- Steve Feasey, Sam Osman and Echo Freer. Josh Lacey arrived late and got blamed for everything. |
This year I was perched up on the stage, marking the quiz - which was great because I had a wonderful vantage point for taking photos!
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| Wayne Mills in action, wearing his trademark hat |
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Sue Shaper organized the whole thing. Thank you, Sue!
(Sue is vice chair of CILIP's school libraries group national committee) |
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| Visuals from the 'Rodents' section of the Quiz (name that rodent!) |
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I managed to get this photo before the event started, of Sara Grant, Katie Dale and Keren David - who were marking quiz sheets with me. Below - here are the markers all set for the job: Savita Kalhan, Sara, Katie and me. Miriam Halahmy, who was also marking, took the photo on Katie's camera. I didn't manage to get a shot of the authors who were scoring, but you can see them in the distance - Pat Walsh, Pauline Francis and Mark Robson
And here are some of the bright sparks who joined the competition! |
The winners were City of London Girls - little geniuses ... during the break, they were sitting quietly, reading!
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| City of London Girls won the heat! |
Here are the top five teams in the North London heat:
1. City of London Girls A
2. Arnold House B
3. Orley Farm A
4. City of London Girls B
5. Bishop’s Stortford College A
CONGRATULATIONS!
I had such fun! The overall winners get to go to New Zealand for the world finals!!! So sad to miss the finals this Friday in Oxford - good luck, young readers! Read about the finals on
Fiona Dunbar's Girls Heart Books post. And here's more from
Katy Dale (at the North London final),
Philip Reeve (who went to Wadebridge for the South West final), and
Jo Cotterill (at the Oxon/Berks regional heat)!
The best readers in North London all gathered under one roof! The Kids' Lit Quiz is annual literature competition for children aged 10 to 13. It puts readers onto the stage and lets them compete for fantastic prizes - I went last year to the South England heats and to the North London heats (Read my blog post about it).
The quiz has heats in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, USA, China and Australia, winning teams qualify for national and world finals. The Kids' Lit Quiz is not for profit and run entirely by volunteers. International sponsors include Serco, Softlink, Scholastic and Oxford University Press.
The quiz was founded by by New Zealand quizmaster Wayne Mills, who reads enough books to write several thousands questions each year. When his kids were teenagers he never observed readers at prize-givings being rewarded for their reading and it was this that provided the impetus to start a literary competition for 11-13 year olds in 1991. The idea of the quiz then was to acknowledge and motivate readers at a time when reading traditionally dipped. He claims to have never asked the same question twice!
