Epiphany Middle School has a team of sixth graders ready to compete in the academic bowl game. There are four kids and the teacher who will coach them. Every Saturday they get together, and through these sessions, we meet all of the characters and get to know them. When the bowl game begins, we understand how their life experiences hand them the answers to the questions they are asked. Fascinating characters, humor and heart-felt insight make this book a powerhouse. This book is the winner of the 1997 Newbery Medal.
Keywords: middle school, academic competition, teacher, humor, 8 year old, 9 year old, 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, Newbery Medal, If You Liked Because of Mr. Terupt, If You Liked The Library Card by Jerry Spinelli
176 pages 978-0689817212 Ages 8-12
Recommended by: Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com
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HOW HAD MRS. OLINSKI CHOSEN her sixth-grade Academic Bowl team? She had a number of answers. But were any of them true? How had she really chosen Noah and Nadia and Ethan and Julian? And why did they make such a good team? It was a surprise to a lot of people when Mrs. Olinski's team won the sixth-grade Academic Bowl contest at Epiphany Middle School. It was an even bigger surprise when they beat the seventh grade and the eighth grade, too. And when they went on to even greater victories, everyone began to ask: How did it happen? It happened at least partly because Noah had been the best man (quite by accident) at the wedding of Ethan's grandmother and Nadia's grandfather. It happened because Nadia discovered that she could not let a lot of baby turtles die. It happened when Ethan could not let Julian face disaster alone. And it happened because Julian valued something important in himself and saw in the other three something he also valued. Mrs. Olinski, returning to teaching after having been injured in an automobile accident, found that her Academic Bowl team became her answer to finding confidence and success. What she did not know, at least at first, was that her team knew more than she did the answer to why they had been chosen. This is a tale about a team, a class, a school, a series of contests and, set in the midst of this, four jewel-like short stories -- one for each of the team members -- that ask questions and demonstrate surprising answers.---from the publisher
