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Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Ultimate Showdown @ Your Library!

During March Madness, a lot of libraries and YA book blogs were running bracket-style tournaments to battle great YA books. I wanted to do something like this at our library, but I always worried about long request lists making it impossible for our teens to read every book.

I have already posted the video awesomeness that is The Ultimate Showdown, but watching it again gave me an idea. This summer, the kids who attend our summer program will participate in an event featuring battles between characters from pop culture- books, TV, comics, and movies!

Our very own Ultimate Showdown!

We dreamed up a list of 64 characters like Wolverine, SpongeBob SquarePants, Harry Potter, Alaska Young, and Harriet the Spy. Haven’t you ever wondered who would win a battle between Curious George and The Jonas Brothers? I know I have.

We also included some lesser-known, but incredibly amazing book characters. We can’t miss the opportunity to talk up a good book!

So I know you’re wondering how these characters will be judged.

The 64 characters are judged not on their fighting skills. This is not that sort of battle. Instead, the characters are judged in five categories:

Hearts (what’s inside, do they use their heart?) 1-3 points
Smarts (do they use their brain?) 1-3 points
Originality (are they totally unique? Is there no one else like them?) 1-3 points
Game Changer (everyone knows them) 1 point
Coolness Bonus (is this character just really cool?) 1 point

The kids who participate will debate and discuss each battle, come to a group decision, and the winner of each pair will move on to other battles until we have an Ultimate Champion at the end of the summer.

We will have rounds of battle on Thursdays and Saturdays through the summer program.

June 25, June 27, July 2, July 7 - 64 characters, 8 battles each day
July 11 and July 16 - 32 characters, 8 battles each day
July 18 - 16 characters, 8 battles (Sweet Sixteen)
July 23 - 8 characters, 4 battles (Elite Eight)
July 25 - 4 characters, 2 battles (Final Four)
July 30 - 2 characters, 1 battle (Ultimate Champion!)

Visit this blog often for updates!

Let the battle begin!


Credit is due to the original creator of The Ultimate Showdown song and video, Lemon Demon.

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