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Kids Lit QuizMary Mackillop School - Winners of the 2013 competition

07 December, 13

The Kids’ Lit Quiz is an annual competition for children aged 10 to 13 and is the brainchild of Wayne Mills, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland.   Wayne compiles all the questions and hosts all the national and international quiz events.  Unlike the Readers Cup, there is no set reading for the quiz.  

To celebrate National Year of Reading and the Book Week theme Champions Read, the Ipswich District Teacher -Librarian Network invited Wayne to run two demonstration competitions, one in Ipswich and one in Brisbane at the start of Book Week.   Students were asked questions in ten different categories.  At the Ipswich competition they were: Aliases, Bears, Birds, Book Knowledge, Symbols, Music, Dogs, Harry Potter, Cars, Gods and Goddesses.   One round used visual clues, while another used sound clues. At the end of each round, the team with the highest score for that round selected a book prize.  A team can only win once, so it passes on to the next highest scoring team that has not won, until at the end of 10 rounds, 40 books have been distributed.  To add to the excitement, each team nominates one category to double their points. In between rounds an especially difficult question is asked of both children and adults.  The winning child receives $5 for a correct answer and the winning adult in the audience wins $10.

On Friday 17th August 2012, nineteen schools took part at Ipswich Girls Grammar School and the winning team from Ipswich East State School set off to spend their $300 book voucher at their local A Lot of Books bookstore, one of the sponsors of the quiz. The second place team was Karalee State School who took home a swag of books.

 On the Saturday, the event was organised by Book Links and Moreton Bay Regional Libraries with eleven teams taking part at Strathpine Community Centre.  The Book Warehouse sponsored the book prizes while the book vouchers for first and second came from Moreton Bay Regional Libraries and Dymocks Books. The winning team was from Bulimba State School and second was Genesis College.  At both competitions the children and audience had an amazing experience.

It all worked so well the Network helped to make it possible for Queensland to be part of the official Australian competition.  A heat of The Kids Lit Quiz was held in Ipswich on Tuesday 19th February 2013. The entry fee of $100 goes towards bringing Wayne in to run all the Australian events and some goes back to help cover travel costs, with the majority targeted to helping the winning team get to the international finals.
The IDTL Network sponsored the winning team from Queensland, Mary Mackillop School to fly to Canberra for the National Finals on Friday 22nd February.  The winning national team, Canberra Grammar school went to Durban, South Africa for the International Finals in July 2013.

In 2014 the Queensland heat will again be held in Ipswich 18 February and the winners will compete in Sydney on Saturday 22 March. The national winner will compete in Truro, Cornwall, England in July 2014.

Kids Lit Quiz

Reading for Australia blog

Kids Lit Quiz Facebook

Entry form 2014


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