BY KAREN BOSSICK

The Seagulls soared, and so did The Misfit Toys and The Gambling Baddies as Wood River Middle School competed this year in the annual Idaho Battle of the Books.

Students read 16 books, including “The Labors of Hercules Beal” by Gary D. Schmidt, “The London Eye Mystery” by Siobhan Dowd, “The Mona Lisa Vanishes” by Nicholas Day and “A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking” by T. Kingfisher.

Then they competed in quiz show-style formats as they answered questions based on the books.

“I liked the books they chose,” said Duncan Montgomery. “But my favorite is still ‘Where the Red Fern Grows.’ ”

The Seagulls, a 6th grade team coached by Kari Minas, won the school championship. The team featured Alicia Archibald, Piper Renner, Farryn Loosli and Miyu Doan.

In second place was The Gambling Baddies, a 7th grade team coached by Kyle Carr that consisted of Abram Gil-Gomez, Amadeusz Tron, Bailey Chatterton, Tripp Vanden Heuvel and Evan Stalker.

The Misfit Toys coached by Rachel Anderson took second place at Regionals with Lilly Garrison, Tristan Wood, Rylan McGrew, Merckx Ringelstetter and Alex Diaz answering most of the questions correctly.

The Seagulls took third at Regionals.

“We had so much enthusiasm from 6th graders this year,” said Wood River Middle School Librarian Samantha Mora. “We had six 6th grade teams, partly because of Patty Gilman, librarian at Bellevue Elementary, who has done IBOB with her 5th graders for several years.”

This year, Andi Anderson, librarian from Hailey Elementary, is also doing IBOB with 5th graders, Mora said. Both of these elementary schools went to their Regional Tournament, which, Mora said, will generate even more hype for the WRMS IBOB teams next year.

“I also love that we had four enthusiastic 8th grade teams.  Usually, school involvement tapers off in 8th grade, so this speaks to IBOB being a special place for our readers to connect at school.  I also love the friendships that grow from IBOB. We help form teams if interested students don't already have a team, and these teammates always become great friends!” said Mora.

Rosmery Tupul gets that.

“I was in the Noble Knights, and I made friends with the others in the group,” she said. “As for my favorite book, it was ‘The Mona Lisa Vanishes.’ ”

Vanessa Montgomery said her sun Duncan has always been a good reader.

“But I think this got him focused on reading even more,” she added. “Being part of a team gave him more motivation to read.”

Jonny Titelbaum said his group, the Flaming Flamingoes, felt a little pressure at first.

“But they learned to deal with it.”

This year’s groups picked names like Fiction Addiction, Croco Tacos, Chomp and Text Trekkers.

Library assistant Janice Moulton’s organizational prowess and spreadsheet alchemy kept the teams organized. Nineteen staff members participated as coaches, and some formed their own teams to engage in the Battle of the Books.

Coaches were Amy Abel, Beth Andrews, Gabi Bryant, Jennifer Peterson, Jonny Titelbaum, Kari Minas, Kyle Carr, Lisa Hansen, Sara Shafer, Savannah Encinias, Sheila Naghsh, Brenda Southwick, Hannah Beane, Mark Gasenica, Patrick Kinney, Rachel Anderson, Raul Vandenberg, Renee Tatterson and Ronda Ward.

Want to get a head start with the kids for next year? Next year’s books include “Simon Sort of Says” by Erin Bow, “The Curse of the Mummy: Uncovering Tutankhamun’s Tomb” by Candance Fleming and “Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II” by Adam Gidwitz.