The excitement was unmistakable as Eastmont Middle\u2019s Team Peeta finished each other\u2019s sentences and laughed over their favorite reads. Their enthusiasm matched their success: they had just won Canyons School District\u2019s Book Blitz, beating Butler Middle\u2019s We Love Dictionaries and Indian Hills Middle\u2019s All About Books.<\/p>\n
Book Blitz challenges middle school teams to read a curated list of books across genres, then compete by answering questions using book titles\u2014and, when possible, authors. A similar competition, Book Blitz Jr., is held for elementary students<\/p>\n
The book lists are available during the summer and students are already reading for the 2025-26 competition.<\/p>\n
Eastmont eighth-grader Tawny McEntire started early, reading through the list last summer. Her teammates split the remaining titles in the fall.<\/p>\n
Eighth-grader Mary Halladay credited their friendship to a love of reading\u2014ranging from historical fiction to fantasy\u2014for their win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all best friends and we did it to have fun since we like to read books,\u201d she said. \u201cWe work well together, and we all just trust each other enough to go with what other people decide what the answer is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eighth-grader Caraline Herzog added: \u201cWe talked things out and listened to each other, that\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preparation was key. Tawny created 30 pages of study questions and attended every practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team chemistry was a lot better and supportive because we practiced,\u201d\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n
Naming the team was easy, said teammate Millie Rich.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were watching the Hunger Games and said as a joke, we all are on Team Peta so that\u2019s what we called ourselves,\u201d she said, pointing to their team shirts with a Studio C parody quote on the back. \u201cWe laughed a lot, but we learned too. \u2018Fallout\u2019 was a phenomenal book. I didn’t think I would like it because it’s nonfiction, but I learned more than I think a lot of Americans know about our history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Midvale Middle School teacher librarian\/media specialist Judy Rembacz sees the impact of Book Blitz.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s exciting when everyone is reading books, sharing what they read with others,\u201d she said. \u201cThey love the competition quizzes, seeing what they know, and it\u2019s good to see how they support one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mt Jordan Middle teacher librarian Jana Mumford helped with Book Blitz Jr.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting books in kids\u2019 hands is a win and they love the competition aspect,\u201d she said. \u201cI love seeing the younger grades have fun with it.\u00a0 Their enthusiasm feeds right into our programs at the middle school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each middle school brought two teams to the district competition. At the elementary level, 19 schools participated with more than 700 students.<\/p>\n
District Library Media Specialist Gretchen Zaitzeff, who organizes the program, praised the teamwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sportsmanship amongst the teams has been stellar,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd cheers should go out to the parent volunteers, who along with the school facilitators and coaches, have been working all year with our students to be successful at all the levels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandy Rotary has supported Book Blitz Jr. for two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cLocally, we help our community\u2019s youth and focus on education so Book Blitz fits perfectly,\u201d Sandy Rotary President Brenda Suta said. \u201cWe know these kids are the future and education uplifts them to learn and solve things in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year, a four-way tie in the early rounds led to a playoff. Peruvian Park, Ridgecrest and Willow Canyon shared the win, with Alta View as runner-up. All four teams received books and book bags.<\/p>\n
Ridgecrest fifth-grader Safron Schneider recalled the tense tiebreaker.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nerve wracking when we got called up there,\u201d she said. \u201cWe told each other \u2018We got this\u2019 and we joked about one of the boys at our school who wore his lucky socks for us, so we thought about that and were able to focus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Safron, who read all 12 books, began last summer.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Select\u2019 is about a girl who is a good soccer player, and I also play it, so I could relate a lot. \u2018The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary\u2019 had a lot of fifth-grade experiences I feel a lot of fifth-graders can relate to,\u201d\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n
Aiming to become a writer, Safron values reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cReading always helps me improve my knowledge of words, and I always get lost in a good plot line,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Granite fifth-grader Brent Fillerup of the \u201cBook Bears\u201d also read all 12 books.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was my first time competing and it was really good,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to read \u2018Cookies and Milk\u2019 as I wasn\u2019t familiar with it and heard it was based on a true story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Willow Springs fourth-grader Kate Simons of the \u201cSugar Readers\u201d was eager to participate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really like books and read every day,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2019A Wolf Called Wonder\u2019 was a fun book. It was from the point of view of a wolf, which I never have thought about before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her classmate, Rebekah Sutton, enjoyed both the books and the friendships.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked \u2018Saucy;\u2019 it\u2019s about a pig and I love pigs,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of the competitions were close, but that\u2019s part of the fun. I\u2019m planning to read all the books this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The excitement was unmistakable as Eastmont Middle\u2019s Team Peeta finished each other\u2019s sentences and laughed over their favorite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,108932,457,108931,2555,134,64039],"class_list":["post-165528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-book-blitz","tag-books","tag-canyons-school-district","tag-education","tag-entertainment","tag-september-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}