The name of the candy bar in A Birthday for Frances is . . .
Eleven different Children's Book Council Member publishers were represented at the first-ever CBC Extreme Trivia Challenge. The attendees ranged in experience from people who have been in the industry four decades to people in the industry for less than four weeks.
Alan Smagler hosts.
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Host Alan Smagler, a fifteen-year publishing veteran who most recently served as Simon & Schuster's Senior Vice President, Associate Publisher of the Children's Publishing Division and is now the President of Smagler Associates, LLC., charmed the crowd as the Alex Trebek of the night. The questions were submitted by children's librarians and booksellers from all over the U.S. Teams were randomly picked, giving participants from different companies a chance to mingle and get to know one another.
In ROUND ONE, the contestants were broken up into seven different teams that went head-to-head against each other, spurting out knowledge about every aspect of the children's book world, ranging from Caldecott questions to the number of original Babysitter's Club books (131—not including the Super Specials and Mysteries, of course). What was so unique about these teams, huddling together laughing and shouting out their answers, was that most of them had never met before that night.
Champion Know-It-Alls Team 1.
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After ROUND ONE lead to a short tie-breaker round, two teams emerged to compete in ROUND TWO. The questions got harder, the stakes higher, and the audience much more rowdy. In the end Team 1, comprised of Mallory Loehr (Random House), Jennifer Aziz (Harcourt), Elizabeth Law (Simon & Schuster), and Cristin Stickles (HarperCollins), pulled through, sealing their Champion Know-It-All status by knowing The Westing Game's Alice Wexler's nickname (Turtle), that an apple was the first new thing The Giver sees, and that the first ever Children's Book Week Poster was in 1919 and illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith.
The glittering trophies.
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The winners received trophies and full bragging rights, as well as signed copies of Martyn Pig and Lucas by Kevin Brooks, Here Today by Ann Martin, Inkheart and Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke, Alice the Fairy by David Shannon, Ella the Elegant Elephant by Carmela and Steven D'Amico, Montmorency by Eleanor Updale (Scholastic); Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes, 19 Varieties of Gazelle by Naomi Shihab Nye, and Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets selected by Naomi Shihab Nye, pictures by Ashley Bryan (Greenwillow Books); Godless by Pete Hautman, The Legend of Buddy Bush by Shelia P. Moses, and Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti (Simon & Schuster); and Enna Burning by Shannon Hale (Bloomsbury).
One of the Champions, Elizabeth Law, was in her glory. "Finally, in my 40s, the nerdy little bookworm I was in elementary school really got to shine. I've been waiting all these years to show off my arcane knowledge of Newbery winners. My only regret was that I wasn't quizzed about Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon."
The extremely strong Team 4 took home the title of Second Place Know-It-All, awarded to Bethany Bezdecheck (Scholastic), Alyssa Eisner (Simon & Schuster), Samatha McFerrin (Harcourt), and Heather Scott (Bloomsbury USA). They were sent home with copies of Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, edited by Leonard Marcus, in order to fine-tune their children's book trivia skills for later competitions.
CBC Early Career Committee: Colleen AF Venable, Heather Scott, Erica McDonald, Alexandra Cooper, and Martha Mihalick.
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The night was sponsored by the CBC's newly formed Early Career Committee. The committee, all still in their first few years of publishing, consists of Martha Mihalick (Greenwillow Books), Erica McDonald (Scholastic), Alexandra Cooper (Simon & Schuster), and Heather Scott (Bloomsbury USA), and CBC staff liaison Colleen AF Venable.
CBC Chair Lori Benton, Vice President and Publisher for Harcourt as well as a contestant on the third place Team 5, was trophy-less but still thrilled with the outcome of the night. "The first-ever CBC Extreme Trivia Challenge was just that—extreme fun! It was a great chance to gather with colleagues and competitively flex our mental muscles. It was very impressive to see first hand so much brain power in one room!"
Click here to see the trivia questions...
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