Palmerston North kids set for international literature quiz
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Palmerston North intermediate school kids gunning for world literature quiz title
Back, from left, is Hridaansh Chettri, coach Lynette Collis and Yahli Klein. Front, Annabelle Godfrey, left, and Avon Pan. Photo: RNZ/Jimmy Ellingham It's a typical weekday afternoon at Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School's library. But among the smattering of pupils browsing the shelves sits a focused group of four bright young minds who have their eyes on a world title. The school team is off to the World Kids' Lit Quiz in Johannesburg, South Africa, in just under a fortnight after sweeping through the regional and national quizzes. There, they'll face schools from the likes of the US, Australia and Indonesia. The format for the world quiz is like a game show, where the first team to buzz in and correctly answer secures the points. They could be asked about anything, from nursery rhymes to young adult fiction. When RNZ visited the team of 13-year-old Annabelle Godfrey and 12-year-olds Avon Pan, Hridaansh Chettri and Yahli Klein were getting put through the paces by coach and school librarian Lynette Collis. She asked about authors and books, and used YouTube videos for quiz training sessions. Avon said there was a lot of knowledge to retain. "It just gets ingrained into your head. If you've read a book and it's from your childhood you just memorise it and it's in your head for life. "If there's a specific book that we need to learn about we try to remember the author and, mostly, everything in it." The team members all have different areas of expertise - for Hridaansh, it's authors. "I've been making flash cards and trying to memorise dates and their previous hobbies and stuff like that, because there's always going to be an authors round and a titles round in the quiz." The rest is uncertain. The quiz itself takes up only one day of their trip, on 13 August. The rest of the time they'll get to look around Johannesburg and experience the local culture. It's a reward for the hard work they're putting in now. "We read a lot of books. We also do questions about each one. I'd say on average we probably read three or four books a week," Yahli said. "Whenever I have time I just read as many books as I can and just go through it and try to memorise everything. That's probably two or three books a day, if I have time, in the evening," Avon said. That's on top of the regular training sessions with Collis. "I think they've been reading their whole life and they are ready for it right now," she said. "If we had to do a quiz tomorrow they'd be ready because they will have either read the books or they won't have read the books, so as long as they have fun they're going to be amazing." She said the team's success had created a buzz around the school. And in an age where as many as 40 percent of young adult New Zealanders don't like reading , Annabelle said people should just give it a go. "Reading lets your perspective shift from the real world to anywhere you want it to. That's why I'd recommend it over watching a video, and normally you can't find videos that are really high fantasy like I read." Yahli said she didn't used to like reading, but that changed once she picked up a book. Annabelle said she also liked writing fiction, and the other teams members liked putting pen to paper too, although for Avon getting there was a process. "When I was younger I absolutely despised writing. It was my greatest enemy. I couldn't think of any ideas," she said. "When I got into reading a lot of books I got more ideas and a wide spread of imagination." For now, they're concentrating on reading, and despite the expectation of a world tournament Hridaansh said training hadn't dimmed his love of the printed word. "If anything it made me want to read more because usually I feel like life gets in the way - you have all this other stuff you do as well as reading, so it's not a priority. "But, going into this competition gives you a purpose to read." School principal Hamish Ruawai said he would follow the team's progress from afar, as would other pupils at the school. "One of the lucky things we have at our school is our library, which the board commits a lot of funding to. "It's great to have books in front of you. That's the way to go." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
