Cleveland’s Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB) team tied for third on March 9 in the regional competition, held at Franklin High School. Lovingly named “Frank,” the team went into the tournament as a No. 5 seed. They defeated Grant in the first round and lost to Lakeridge in the second round. The third place finish was one win shy of qualifying for state.
“I thought we did really well,” said team member Alex Vennebush, a junior, mentioning that the team is in its second year of existence under the guidance of English teacher Eric Levine.
The team that performed at the regional competition were juniors Alex and Eli Vennebush, and freshmen Alma Valls (center), Rose Dean (left), and Sofia Mauro LeVelle (right)
In Battle of the Books, every team reads 16 books and has to remember as much information from every book as possible. This means a lot of re-reading. In each “battle” the two teams are asked eight questions, 16 in total. The teams have to answer with the name of the book for half of the questions and with specific trivia for the other half. If a question is answered incorrectly, the opposing team can answer instead. OBOB is held at all grade levels from third grade to senior year.