Lit Quiz Kids in the News

With the 2015 Kids' Lit Quiz world final just around the corner, on 8 July 2015, the national teams are on their way to Connecticut, USA.

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What a wonderful adventure they have in store, a timely reminder of the many opportunities that reading brings.  As readers, we always get to travel in our imaginations - even while we have to stay put - but for the kids in the world final teams, their love of reading has also provided this real-life travel opportunity (although, admittedly, the US team doesn't have far to travel this year!)

Here's a wish to all the teams, from Dr Seuss' Oh! the Places You'll Go:

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away! 

After the jump there's an update on who's who at the 2015 world final with links to the news that Lit Quiz kids have been making all around the world:

 

Australia

Orange High School

Read how the Australian team, from Orange High School, won the national title at this link. There was an official farewell from the mayor of Orange you can read about here and there's more about the 2015 Australian competition here.

Canada

Southridge School. Photo credit: Nick Greenizan. PeaceArch News, 6 February 2015

The 2015 Canadian national team is Southridge School in British Columbia, competing in the Kids' Lit Quiz for the first time. Here's a recent news article on the Canadian team.

You can find more news on Kids' Lit Quiz Canada's Facebook page and can also check out the Kids' Lit Quiz Canada website here. To learn how Southridge School came to part of the Kids' Lit Quiz family, please see this post by Canadian National Coordinator, Nancy Davidson on the 2014 Canadian competition.

Here's a little unexpected scoop you won't read about anywhere else: one of the Southridge team's teachers is an old friend of mine from Hong Kong. He was the cartoonist at the South China Morning Post for many years (many years ago).

New Zealand

Southwell School. Photo credit: Rebekah Parsons-King, Fairfax NZ

Southwell School has a strong Kids' Lit Quiz connection, going right back to the start of the Kids' Lit Quiz, in 1991. You can read more about the school and Kids' Lit Quiz in this guest post by Gerri Judkins and Julie Huggins, the coaches of the 2015 New Zealand national team.

You can read more about the Southwell School team's journey to the 2015 Kids' Lit Quiz world final in this article.

Singapore

Clementi Primary School

For the second year in a row, Clementi Primary School will represent Singapore at the world final.

There's not a lot of information on the 2015 team but you can read about the 2014 team here (and I see that at least one member of the 2014 team is back for more literary fun and games.) There's also information about how Singapore came to be part of the Kids' Lit Quiz family.

South Africa

Manor Gardens School

Manor Gardens School in Durban has a strong Kids' Lit Quiz pedigree, with its 2011 team winning that year's world final in New Zealand.

You can read about the South African competition in this post, this article and this profile on one of the team members.

More recently, there was a last minute drama about whether the South African team would be able to attend the world final. Three team members faced administrative delays in the issue of certificates needed to travel to the world final. A High Court writ, filed to try to speed things up, seems to have worked and the team is now on its way. You can read more about this last minute hitch here and here.

One other item of related news: in February, Wayne Mills donated 2000 books (that's a LOT of books!) from his personal library to two under-resourced South African school libraries. The donation was coordinated by SA Kids' Lit Quiz national coordinator, Marj Brown, through Breadline Africa, a South-African based charity, and in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory. You can read more here. 

United Kingdom

Litcham School with author Anthony Horowitz and quizmaster Wayne Mills.
Photo credit: KT Bruce Photography.

Congratulations to Litcham School, the 2015 UK national team.

Each year, the Kids' Lit Quiz calendar kicks off in the United Kingdom in November. With 18 regional heats (and growing!) the UK competition is the largest domestic competition in the Kids' Lit Quiz family. Heats are held in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with over 400 schools competing throughout the UK. You can read more about the 2015 UK competition heats here and find Wayne Mills' report on the 2015 UK national final here (scroll down to the UK update.)

United States

Sedgwick Middle School

For the second year in a row, the US national team comes from Sedgwick Middle School, Connecticut. I see one familiar face from last year's team which competed in Cornwall. This year's team doesn't have to travel as far!

The Kids' Lit Quiz is relatively new to the US, starting there in 2011 (it was introduced to Australia in 2012). Here's a report from the Middletown Press on the 2015 US competition, another report on this year's competition, a link to the Kids' Lit Quiz US site and Sedgwick Middle School's newsletter article on the 2015 national team.

Good Luck!

Good luck everyone - it looks like a fantastic program with highlights including a visit to Mark Twain's house and a writing workshop with Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret,  in New York City. You'll come away from the world final truly enriched, with lots of new friends from all around the world and lots of new books to read. Who could ask for more!