On 8th March, for the first time the HMB School sent a team to compete at the Kid Lit Quiz. KLQ is a literature quiz offered to children aged 10-13 years. Quizzes are held in countries around the world.

The Island team attending the Southland heat in Gore was made of up four of our school’s most voracious readers: James, Sam, Aiofe and Tai. The scope of the quiz is vast: fairy tales, fables, nursery rhymes, picture books, poetry, book-related vocabulary and anatomy, graphic novels, comics, children’s books and young adult literature – classics and contemporary. And MORE: mythology, popular culture, movies, superheroes…

We studied and studied and studied some more. Last year I added dozens of classic and popular contemporary children’s literature titles to the library shelves. We went over the books they’d read to make sure they knew them inside out. We tackled Greek, Roman, Maori and some Norse mythology. No stone unturned in Alice and Wonderland; A Bear called Paddington; Winnie-the-Pooh; the Wizard of Oz. We became experts in To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hobbit, and Harry Potter. We earned our doctorates in Dr Suess, Maurice Sendak, and CS Lewis.

The format is much like our Pub Quiz: the teams choose one category where their points will be double, and each category is ten questions. I was super proud of the Stewart Island team, who faced much bigger schools and super tricky questions with enthusiasm, good humor and wisdom. When they didn’t know something, they made educated guesses which in one instance paid off! Ultimately, they placed 11th among the 27 teams.

A hi-light was Tai, Hunger Games expert, politely correcting the Quizmaster on a detail from The Hunger Games. 

It was a challenging quiz.  As I said, we’d studied Greek, Roman, Maori and Norse mythology, but we didn’t cover Hindu mythology which came up during the “archery” category! I’d covered Yertle the Turtle and the Mock Turtle and the Hare and the Tortoise, but I hadn’t touched on the Mutant Ninja Turtles which came up in the “Masks” category. I’d grilled the kids about every detail of every fairy tale, but we weren’t prepared to know the title of the fourth Shrek movie in the “books turned into movies” category.

Overall, it was a fun and challenging experience and next year we plan to enter a Year 5&6 team as well as the senior team!