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QuickTake:
The four girls from Buena Vista Elementary first bonded over their love of books. After years of close family friendships and daily preparation, the Reading Koalas and their supporters will travel to Salem for the Oregon Battle of the Books state competition on April 11.
The Reading Koala’s 9 a.m. Saturday practice April 4 was like many that had come before it.
Eleven-year-olds Austyn Eck, JaeLynn Jimenez, Paloma Samora-Walker and Hazel Ramos Parr huddled at the kitchen table in the Eck household.
The Oregon Battle of the Books team’s stack of 16 books sat next to them, along with neat piles of notes.
Nearby, little siblings played. Parents milled around the kitchen, sharing family news and preparing breakfast.
“Austyn wanted toasted with strawberry cream cheese, and you wanted toasted plain, and you wanted not toasted with strawberry?” Jennifer Jimenez asked, taking the bagel order.
Amid the laid-back atmosphere, however, was an undercurrent of anticipation. In exactly one week, the Buena Vista Elementary School fifth-graders would be competing in Salem at the Oregon Battle of the Books state championships.
The team’s three years of preparation will be put to a final test on Saturday. But the contest, known as OBOB, has done more than teach members of the Reading Koalas study skills and teamwork. It has been a binding force for the girls and their families throughout their elementary school years.
A competitive edge
Austyn, JaeLynn, Paloma and Hazel have been friends since first grade.
They formed a Battle of the Books team in third grade after Hazel’s mom, Angelene Parr Ramos, urged the young book lovers to get involved in the statewide book trivia competition. This spring, the girls won their school-level battle for the first time, advancing to Eugene School District 4J’s regional elementary competition and winning again.
“Every year we’ve been going one step further,” Paloma said. “This year we just kind of …”
“We just kind of blew up,” finished JaeLynn, grinning.
The level of preparation needed to be a state-bound OBOB team is high, even in elementary school. Each team member becomes an expert on four of the 16 books that the state-level Oregon Battle of the Books organization selects every year. Every elementary-level team will have collectively read 3,642 pages across all 16 books this year, according to OBOB stats.
Started in 2007, the competition is run primarily by volunteers and organized through the Oregon Association of School Libraries. OBOB is open to third- through 12th-graders and is segmented into elementary, middle and high school levels.
During the competition, two teams face off and take turns answering questions. The questions fall into two categories: content and “in which book” questions, where students are required to name the title and author. Decorum is strict. The team has 15 seconds to huddle, confer and answer, and only one member of the team, the “spokesperson,” can speak to the judge. There’s no going back to the group once the spokesperson has started speaking, making intergroup communication critical.
Anxiety was high leading up to the team’s last competition. Austyn woke up at 3 a.m. before the regional competition and couldn’t fall back to sleep. She tried everything, including reading.
She wasn’t the only anxious Koala.
“On the way there, my stomach was hurting so bad,” said JaeLynn.
They each have their ways of handling the nerves during the competition as well. Austyn clenches her legs. JaeLynn grabs onto her chair. But they support each other in quiet ways, holding hands in their little circle and high-fiving each other after each question, no matter how they do.
The Reading Koalas’ rise
The Reading Koalas met monthly for practices this year, ramping up to twice-monthly as competitions drew closer. The majority of preparation happened at home, however, through daily parent encouragement and, as the girls have grown, self-motivated studying.
Each team member — and family — has their own strategies.
They write detailed notes, some listen to audiobook versions and their parents quiz them nearly daily. Jennifer Jimenez, JaeLynn’s mom, plays the audiobooks in the car.
“My mom will randomly pause it and be like, ‘What color was his hair?’” JaeLynn said.
Because the Reading Koalas have been reading their books since last summer, studying has become more difficult lately. Paloma has fought off burnout by giving herself rewards.
“Sometimes I’ll be like, OK, if I read this much, then I can go take a three-minute break outside or five-minute, maybe,” she said.
Haley Eck, Austyn’s mom, recently typed up detailed notes for several of the books to supplement the team’s study materials.
“All the practice questions that we can find online from various libraries in the state, they already know all of those,” Parr Ramos said.
The younger siblings have been along for the ride, sometimes answering quiz questions correctly before their older siblings. JaeLynn’s younger brother, Julian, 7, falls asleep listening to the books.
“He’s so excited to do it next year,” Jennifer Jimenez said.
A family of families
Alongside the endless reading and quizzing and obsessing over details, real life has also tested the Reading Koalas.
The families have weathered hardships together, like JaeLynn’s dad being away for much of the year due to his service in the Army and Hazel’s dad traveling for long stretches for his job in construction.
Both fathers were able to come for the girls’ regional competition, however. Juan Jimenez loved watching them compete.
“They’re super in tune with each other,” he said. “The communication with these little girls is just perfect.”
He credited the girls’ moms for much of the parental support the girls needed to reach state.
“We got really lucky,” said Parr Ramos, referring to the chemistry of the Reading Koala families. “It doesn’t always click like that.”
‘You’re set, you’ve got this’
In the Eck’s kitchen, moms Haley Eck, Jennifer Jimenez and Parr Ramos planned logistics for the following Saturday’s championship.
“You guys did the same hair the last two times,” Eck said. “You want to stick with the same half up, curly?”
The girls said yes. Their matching hair, along with jeans and green Reading Koalas T-shirts, will be their unofficial uniform.
Jennifer Jimenez admitted she’s worried about JaeLynn’s preparation more than JaeLynn at times, stressing that her daughter wasn’t doing enough. Then she quizzes JaeLynn on her most difficult-to-remember details, and she gets them all right.
“You’re set, you’ve got this,” she told JaeLynn. “It’s just me.”
