Seventeen teams of young readers gathered at Collegiate Junior School for Girls recently to pit their wits against their peers in the local round of the “Reading Olympics” Kids Lit Quiz.
The quiz is held annually across SA for children aged 12 and 13 to test their reading knowledge.
Founder and global quizmaster Wayne Mills, an English lecturer from New Zealand, crafts the questions for seven countries worldwide, and has received New Zealand’s order of merit for his services to children’s literature.
Kids Lit Quiz SA co-ordinator Marj Brown was the quizmaster for the Gqeberha round.
She said she was once again inspired by everyone’s enthusiasm and the steady growth in the number of participating schools.
“The number of schools taking part has grown hugely over the years, and it was wonderful to see parents attending too, taking the time to support their children as readers, on the scale that one would normally see at a rugby or hockey match,” Brown said.
The quiz ran smoothly thanks to Collegiate librarian Robyn Bentley and her team of markers from several schools.
Taking the honours as winning team of the day, Clarendon Park Primary School will now attend the SA finals in Cape Town on Saturday.
Clarendon principal Derryk Jordan said the school had won the Kids Lit Quiz for the second year in a row.
Members of the winning team comprised pupils Rachel Meyer, Lizzy Steenkamp, Jana Wipplinger and Anthea Wattrus.
The winning SA team will then go through to the Kids Lit Quiz World Finals in August.
The 2025 World Finals are being held in Johannesburg, which will include the national finalists from six other countries, including Australia, Canada, Indonesia, New Zealand, the US and Thailand.
“As I looked around the school hall, I was filled with joy and gratitude by how this exciting event has developed,” Brown said.
“The teams were so much more diverse from a gender and racial perspective compared to 22 years ago when I brought Wayne and his quiz to this country.”
She highlighted how a culture of reading was a vital ingredient in resolving SA’s many socioeconomic challenges, and congratulated the participants on their passion for reading and learning.
“We are often beset by worries and the bigger challenges in SA, but we have to be part of the solution, not part of the problem,” she said.
“We also have to take time to celebrate these great moments where children can be lauded for their achievements in reading.”
The questions asked during the quiz are based on anything ever written in the English language for children — going back 2,000 years and more.
The definition of children’s literature is broad, as questions include authors such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Shakespeare and mythology from Roman and Greek times, as well as folklore spanning different continents.
Different genres are included, such as steampunk, classics, comics and manga.
Participants also draw on their past reading of nursery rhymes and fables, as well as their current literary habits, and knowledge of award-winning authors is also necessary.
Based on her work with the Kids Lit Quiz, Brown started a similar competition — the Phendulani Literacy Quiz — 17 years ago for pupils in under-resourced schools.
The better resourced Kids Lit Quiz schools contribute part of their entry fee to Phendulani to top up the books donated by publishers.
In Gqeberha, the Phendulani quiz is co-ordinated by Michele Kerley of Grey Junior School.
“In some cases, a relationship has developed between the Kids Lit schools and their Phendulani neighbours, and they form a fantastic developmental partnership,” Brown said.
The Herald