Marj Brown 

  

Abstract: The Kids Lit Quiz is a literary quiz aimed at 12-13 year olds. Itrewards readers whilst challenging them through questions that range frombasic to interpretative and expands their horizons culturally.IntroductionThe above quote from a South African pupil sums up the depth of feelingtowards this highly motivating, literature quiz. The Kids Lit Quiz, knownin South Africa (SA) as the Kalahari Kids Lit Quizâ„¢, was introduced toSouth Africa three years ago. The author had a brief sojourn in the UnitedKingdom (UK) and was fortunate enough to land a job running a high schoollibrary in the North of Yorkshire. She was attracted to a newspaper articlethat read, Readers win in Wayne's World. A regional heat of the quiz wasto be held in Newcastle, in about a fortnight's time and having beeninformed that it was a general knowledge quiz on literature, she hurriedlyentered a team. The excitement in the room was palpable with children fromabout 14 schools hanging on the words of the quizmaster, pitching theirwits against each other to answer questions about literature ranging fromthe classics to comics to contemporary novels. The author asked WayneMills, the quizmaster, if he would consider coming to SA if sufficient prizes and teams could be gathered ; he was very willing and the SA KidsLit Quiz was born. A year later,  sponsorship from Kalahari.net wasobtained and the quiz is now a viable concern. 

  

 The QuizAimed at 10-13 year olds (in South Africa, pupils from grades 6 and 7),teams consist of four students who work together to answer wide-rangingliterary questions. The teams are asked 100 questions in 10 categories,which vary from year to year. Contestants ponder questions from almost anygenre including comics, poetry, nursery rhymes, classics and contemporaryfiction, and questions may range from who said, Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Ishall be too late! to which novel begins, ˜In a hole in the ground lived 

  

 The Kids’ Lit Quizâ„¢ is the brainchild of Wayne Mills, senior lecturer inthe Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Millscalls the quiz the “sport of reading” and he developed the quiz because heso often saw at school prize-giving, children who were good at sport beingrewarded, but he seldom saw good readers being rewarded. Therefore in 1991he commenced the quiz in Hamilton (at this time he was with the Universityof Waikato) to reward readers. In that first year 14 teams took part. Todayit has grown into a hugely popular annual event spanning three continents. 

  

 Mills, who lectures on children’s literature, phrases his questionscarefully, ensuring that at a regional level, there are questions which arestraight forward, whilst at a national level, the questions become moreinterpretative. At an international level, questions may includeidentifying a traditional tale by its moral, or identifying nursery rhymesby a description of their history and origin. He’s very keen to ensure thathis questions are ‘organic’. By that term he means that a listener ought tofeel inspired by the question to go and read the book particularly if itwas one that the child was unaware of. For instance: In what book do weread about a nine year-old German boy slipping under the perimeter fence atAuschwitz to join a group of Jewish prisoners? If the listener hasn’t readthis book then (s)he is inspired or encouraged to read it. This oftenapplies for the school librarian or the parent listening in the audience. 

  

 The quiz includes books in English by authors from many countries, thusexposing children to the international richness of reading. Mills is oftenasked why he, a Kiwi, is the one travelling the world asking the questions.“In my country about 130 kids’ trade books are published annually. Thiscompares for example, with 18,500 in the UK in 2005. Kiwi kids need tosupplement their literary diets with books from all over the world hence myinterest in international children’s literature,” Mills says. 

  

 GenderThe quiz has traditionally had about two thirds of the teams comprising offemales. Over the last few years, the numbers of boys participating in NewZealand (NZ) has increased. In SA, the ratio of girls to boys has beenfairly even. The first team to win in South Africa had three girls and oneboy, although in 2005 an all girls’ team won the SA finals and they went onto come second in the international finals. The world finalists that yearwere also an all girls’ team. 

  

 Mills, a good male role model himself in a world of predominately femalelibrarians, feels it is crucial for male authors to inspire boys who loveto read and are often spurned by the “jocks” in the class. In the NZ finalslast year, David Hill, a male author, addressed the teams from all over NZ.He spoke of the fact that reading helps children express themselves andhopefully for boys, will assist them to solve differences with wordsinstead of fists. 

  

 Every year an international dinner is hosted by the NZ sponsors-Paper PlusLtd where contestants gather informally, usually the night before the quiz,to talk about books and to listen to an after-dinner speaker. For many boysthis will often be the first time they have ever seen so many avid boyreaders, gathered in one room. One can almost sense the incredulity of theboys as they look around the room and feel that they are not alone. Becausereading is a solitary activity one may feel isolated when in fact each ofus is part of a worldwide network of readers. Throughout the three-coursedinner one member from each of the teams is asked to talk about his or herbest book for one minute. At this time one can hear a pin drop. Kids listenenraptured as peers share their all-time favourites. In 2006 the afterdinner speaker was the world-renowned Margaret Mahy who won the HansChristian Andersen Medal in April. She reminded the contestants that theywere as creative as the authors when they interpreted the words on the pageand imbued them with meaning. 

  

 Literacy and Literary meritAfter running the quiz for 16 years in NZ, Mills expanded it to the UK fiveyears ago and now 211schools take part over 15 regions. In NZ, 279 schoolstook part, which represented a 15% increase over the previous year. Theregional finals are firmly fixed as events on the schools’ literarycalendars. 

  

 For SA, this is a hard act to follow. Resources in school and publiclibraries are often low and many schools do not have English as a firstlanguage. The quiz does not aim to solve these problems although Mills isvery aware that these need attention. Like sport, whilst there is a need totrain and build up poorly resourced areas, there needs to be a goal to worktowards, some successful incentives and standards of excellence, lestmediocrity becomes the order of the day due to a sense of overwhelmingneed. The problems need to be tackled at both ends: literacy needs to betackled as well as literary excellence aimed for. The UK expended enormousamounts of money into a curriculum programme that included a literacy andnumeracy hour in every primary school. Recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development research has shown that the UK scores highly intechnical reading skills, but a study produced by the National Foundationfor Educational Research showed that actual enthusiasm for reading amongyoung people was almost the lowest in the world (Armstrong, 2004). 

  

 Watching the children’s enthusiasm during the quiz, one can see how such anincentive and the accolade of winning prizes, and the fun of teamwork,could change all that. Children work in teams of four and it is likewatching the Mexican wave: heads come up, hear the question and then allfour heads dive down as the members consult each other in hushed whispers.Answers are written down – ten per theme. While these are being marked,Mills walks around and asks spot questions for a R5 spot prize and asksparents and teachers a theme based question as well. He feels that in thisway the kids see the teachers and parents involved and part of reading too.There have been occasional instances where no adult has been able to answerthe adult question that he’s posed yet one of the kids has. An example waswhen after the horse category Mills turned to the adults and asked them tosupply the name of the horse in Nicholas Evan’s book The Horse Whisperer.No adult was able to but there behind him was a twelve-year old girl fit tobust with the correct answer of Pilgrim. 

  

 In the UK, students are treated to authors visiting regional rounds andforming a team with their publishers to take on the kids. In 2006 inOxford, for the first time ever, an authors’ team lead by publisher DavidFickling ‘won’ the Oxford regional heat. What a bonus this is for kidsbeing able to meet the likes of Gillian Cross or the late Jan Mark andproving yourself against them. In South Africa, we have a long way to gofor this to happen. The nature of our literature is changing and as moreand more South African novels are published and become internationallyknown, so too may our authors be part of this process of enthusing youngreaders. 

  

 The international finalsIn June of each year, the winning national team is invited to NZ to takepart in the World Final. In June of 2005 the first South African team, fromDe La Salle Holy Cross College attended this final in Auckland. There hadbeen forty teams in total taking place in SA the previous year. This was asmall beginning, but one that will hopefully lead to increased growth inthe next few years (in 2006, approximately 100 teams will take part in thequiz). They faced teams from NZ whose schools had participated for possiblyover a decade, and a team from Oxford in the UK that had come up againstfifteen other winning regional teams in that country. It would have beenhard for the subtle knife to cut through the atmosphere of tension hoveringover the stage in the ASB Auditorium at the Aotea Centre in Auckland.Tables of four children huddled together, to pitch their wits against eachother. All these children would have imbibed literature for months prior tothe world final because they love reading and because they were broadeningtheir normal reading base, in an attempt to cover whatever topics the‘Wizard of Words’ (Wayne Mills), (in SA we would call him the Sangoma ofStories) could conjure up. 

  

 The World Final is unlike the regional heats because teams are not asked towrite their answers. Instead they respond by pushing a buzzer, which isaccurate to within 1/10000th of a second. The questions at the final areanswered orally and Mills peels each one like an onion. As clues for eachquestion get progressively easier teams can interrupt whenever they wish. Acorrect response gains two points; an incorrect one loses one point. 

  

 In 2006, the South African national team from Springfield Convent camesecond in the world finals – a major achievement and a team from Beijingcompeted for the first time. The desire for books in English coupled withfervour to speak English fuelled the fires for a Chinese team to compete inthe World Final. That this team gained a credible seventh in their firstyear augurs well for the future. 

  

 Cross-cultural encountersSA children tend to be exposed to and read books from all over the world.However, while books from the UK, United States (USA), Australia, and soforth are available from major book dealers here, they do come at a priceand often public libraries battle to keep abreast of new stock forfinancial reasons. It is to the credit of the SA teams that they havemanaged to compete successfully with international teams. 

  

 For the international finals in 2005, the NZ and UK team members had readas many SA books as they had been able to lay their hands on, thinking theywould have lots of questions on South African books. In fact, Mills asked agreat number of questions about authors and books from the USA. Hisreasoning was that this was neutral territory, as the USA does not yetparticipate in the quiz. However in 2006 his categories were diverse fromsettings, to myths and legends, to authors, to identifying characters, tocomic books made into films and recognising opening chapters from novels. 

  

 After the finals, the contestants were part of the annual StorylinesFestival in NZ, where they had a chance to meet famous NZ authors and toget their books signed. The offshoot of this was a sense of being stretchedculturally. The students each brought back books from about five authorsthat they had never encountered in SA, but now had met. The StorylinesFestival is the world’s largest literary festival for children and spreadout over five floors the choices and opportunities for kids are boundless.This free day is a literary feast or authors, illustrators and storytellersthat attracts in excess of 25 000 people. 

  

 As part of their World Final prize package the international teams touredaround the central North Island of New Zealand courtesy of Paper Plus NZLtd. Together for a week in a bus the international teams bond and formfriendships because they have reading in common. 

  

 Up until now, the World Final has always been in New Zealand, but Mills iskeen to have the final elsewhere from 2010. This will further cross-pollinate the reading habits of the children who have the privilege ofattending the finals in different countries. These children, too, will havethe chance to scour the bookshops in a foreign country and be exposed tonew authors. In 2005 the Kids’ Lit Quizâ„¢ was launched in China. The quizwill take part in Northern Ireland in 2006 and there are moves to launch itin Canada, the USA and Australia. 

  

 Effects on libraries and reading patterns:As the status of the quiz is raised in the school, being chosen for theteam becomes a sought after goal. There are pre-test questions, childrenborrow more books and librarians sense the excitement of the heats. In someschools, librarians start coaching pupils early by encouraging them to readwidely, look back at old books, read and to re-read the classics, and soforth. In SA, teams are beginning to prepare for the quiz quite a bit aheadof time. In Cape Town for instance there is a school that holds regular Nibmeetings (nose-in-books) where the children attend sessions to discuss andenthuse about books. Although the quiz is general knowledge and impossibleto study for, pupils who have watched the quiz now pay more attention toopening lines of books, read more poetry, go back to old fairy tales andnursery rhymes and find out a bit more about their favourite authors. 

  

 For others, the sheer joy of reading is paramount and teams are chosen atshort notice from children who read widely. Some librarians choose childrenwho read different kinds of books as Mills includes questions from popularculture such as comics as much as he questions children on the classics.Visual literacy is also an important component of the quiz, and onecategory will invariably be a visual one – ranging from pictures ofmythical beasts to publishers logos or famous book characters. 

  

 For children who love reading, having this competitive focus is a wonderfulway for their talents and knowledge to receive the spotlight, even if theyread for pure enjoyment. Besides this it challenges them to be moreattentive of characters, draws them into the world of the author whosebooks they have read and why the author wrote such stories. For childrenwho are good readers but may be stuck within a particular genre, it enticesthem to read beyond this and in the process discover other worlds ofliterature that are as fulfilling or delighting. The fact that the Kids’Lit Quizâ„¢ is becoming more international means that children are encouragedto look at authors from an increasing number of countries. This heightenschildren’s sensitivities to people’s issues around the globe and makes thembetter citizens of the world. 

  

 The excitement of the quiz provides a catalyst for librarians to be moreproactive in their promotion of a wide range of literature and gives theclasses they run more incentive to read.During the quiz, Mills will promote some literature that the children orlibrarians may not yet have encountered. This acts as a catalyst forfurther reading on a wider and deeper scale. The book prizes awarded inSouth Africa by Kalahari.net are usually “hot off the press” meaning thatkids are being exposed to the very latest in new titles. 

  

 The quote below from a school in New Zealand that reached the final in2006, underscores the excitement felt by all who participate in thisliterary experience:“It has been a fantastic opportunity for us to compete this year at thislevel and very exciting competing against world finalists as well. We foundthe competition to be challenging and rewarding in that it has left uswanting to come back for more and of course given us so many more ideas formore books to read and enjoy too. I was most impressed with the literatureknowledge of all the regional and world finalists. It certainly made for anexciting and nerve wracking, final competition. 

  

 Being new to the competition this year I am still gleaning information onthe way the competition works and giving my students the best preparation Ican. This year I have practised with questioning students on both NewZealand and international authors. 

  

 Further, I would like to commend you on bringing to so many children a loveof reading and the desire to extend their reading knowledge in such acompetitive and fun atmosphere, as well as the opportunity to showcasethese very valued skills. In our school alone all the students who havebeen involved in preparing for this competition have thoroughly enjoyed theprocess and they are already asking for more” (Karen Collins, Glen EdenIntermediate West Auckland). 

  

 ReferencesArmstrong, E. 2004. The Kids’ Lit Quiz: a pub quiz without the beer. TheSchool Librarian 52(2): page numbers 70-71. 

  

 Harper, J. 2001. The Kids’ Lit Quizâ„¢. Magpies 16 (4). 

  

 Poplak, C. 2006. Fiction publishing in the 21st century. Books For Keeps158(May).page numbers. 

  

 Mills, W. 2004. The sport of reading. Bookbird, A Journal of InternationalChildren’s Literature 42(2). 

  

 West, E. 2004. The tsar of children's books. New Zealand Education Gazette83(3). 

  

 Williams, E. 2003. Readers win in Wayne’s World. Times EducationalSupplement  April 18.