Fourth and Fifth graders at St. John the Evangelist School in Warrenton, VA participated in their county's Battle of the Books final competition on April 30th. It was an exciting day because students Anthony Del Rosso, Chris Parios, Candace Gearhart, Sydney Baker, and Rachel McArthur tied for first place after a three round tie-breaker with Mary Walter Elementary School.

The five contestants read all twenty-four books on the Battle of the Books list and prepared the whole school year for that one hour of competition. They wrote questions on each book, had in-school competitions once a week, a practice scrimmage with a neighboring public school, and passed two qualifying tests given by their coaches, Betsy Anderson and Maria Del Rosso. By the day of the final competition most of the team members had read each book at least twice.

St. John the Evangelist School Middle School Battle of the Books team members Maddie Dargis, Elizabeth Liebel, Caroline Liebel, Kathryn Mullin and Helena Wojcik read the nineteen books on their list and studied questions prepared by students and parents and passed a qualifying test given by coaches Betsy Anderson, Mariola Doran and Lori Raden. On the evening of April 24th , the final four hour competition with Culpeper, Manassas, Rappahannock and Fauquier schools included a multiple choice test, five rounds of questioning, and a final round of comparison questions. The team members, who were competing for the first time in this multi-county event, came in sixth place.