Ready…Steady…Read!

NEWS RELEASE
For immediate release 1 June 2007

Ready…Steady…Read!

There’s a race of a different sort happening all over the country as intermediate age kids rush to the library to get their hands on as many books as they can.

The Kids’ Lit Quiz New Zealand Final is being held on Sunday 10 June in Auckland at the Aotea Centre, The Edge, as part of the Storylines Festival of New Zealand children's writers and illustrators. Entry is free.

The two-hour final event, starting at 11am in the main auditorium, will see 13 teams from Invercargill to Whangarei, competing for the first prize - the opportunity to represent the country in the Kids Lit Quiz World Final in England on 9 July.

Developed by Wayne Mills, a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, the annual school-based competition for year seven and eight students aims to promote reading and test the literary knowledge of young readers.

“The quiz has grown in popularity all round the country and this year the response has been overwhelming,” he says. “The kids are all so keen and continue to astound us with their literary knowledge."

The quiz not only encourages children to read, but is fun as well. It is so popular that in some regional venues the competitors had to sit on the floor with clipboards.

Teams of four students work together to answer wide-ranging literary questions from almost any genre, including comics, poetry, nursery rhymes, classics and contemporary fiction. In the final the teams will asked 60 questions in five categories.

Thanks to principal sponsors Random House, Collins, Hachette Livre, Macmillan, the EDGE and the University of Auckland, the final offers book prizes and spot prizes for both kids and adults.

But all will be focussed on winning the major prize, as for the first time, the Kids Lit Quiz World Final will be held offshore. The winning New Zealand team of four readers, accompanied by two adults, will travel to Oxford for a life-changing week in July, which will be part of Oxford’s 1000th birthday celebrations.

“Students will also have opportunities to meet Philip Pullman, explore the Roald Dahl Museum and to participate in the Alice in Wonderland Festival at the Oxford millennium celebrations," says Wayne.

Other competing teams in the July final will come from China, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and South Africa.

The 13 schools represented in the Kids Lit Quiz New Zealand final are:

Region School
Northland Whangarei Intermediate
Auckland St Cuthbert's College & Ponsonby Intermediate
Waikato/Bay of Plenty Tauranga Intermediate
Hawke’s Bay Hereworth School
Taranaki/Wanganui Hawera Intermediate
Manawatu Palmerston North Normal Intermediate
Wellington Wellesley College
Nelson Nelson Intermediate
Canterbury Cathedral Grammar School & St Margaret’s College
Otago Tahuna Intermediate
Southland James Hargest College

Ends

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