Register now for the 24-25 IBOB season!

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Idaho Battle of the Books, or IBOB, is a statewide voluntary reading motivation and comprehension program open to all Idaho students in grades 4-12, regardless of ability. IBOB is meant to expose students to quality literature representing a variety of literary styles and viewpoints. The mission of the program is to encourage and recognize students who enjoy reading, share the love of reading with students who have not yet discovered that for themselves, broaden reading interests, increase reading comprehension, promote academic excellence, and promote cooperative learning and teamwork among students.

Lists of books are chosen, and questions are written, for each grade level division; elementary (grades 4-6), middle/junior high (grades 6-9) and high school (grades 9-12). Students read the books, discuss them, and then compete in teams of four students to correctly answer questions based on the books in a “quiz show” format. Half of the questions in a battle will begin with “In Which Book…”, where the correct answer is the title and author. The other half of the questions are “Content” questions, where the title is given and the team must answer a question about that book. Levels of competition begin at the school or local library level, and may continue into regional or even state competition, as those levels are developed with the growth of this program in Idaho.

New lists of titles for each level are compiled each year by the Selection Committee based on the “Criteria for the Selection of Titles.” An attempt is made to vary the titles chosen according to genre and difficulty so that readers may encounter a broad range of books. Care is also taken to ensure a diversity of people, places, and ideas among the chosen titles so that students may find the diversity of our world reflected in the pages of the books. It is not the goal or purpose of IBOB to endorse nor censor titles solely based on race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation of the characters or author(s) of a book.