Saint Kentigern Girls Triumph at Kids’ Lit Quiz

Can you tell me what the nickname ‘Mo’ is short for in the ‘Inkheart’ series by German author Cornelia Funke? Perhaps you know why a poem about dishes from ‘A Light in the Attic’ by American author Shel Silverstein was banned when it was released in the 1970s? If you don’t, just ask the Kids’ Lit Quiz team!

In May, our girls competed in such children’s literature trivia against sixty other Auckland teams. From the start of the year, our most passionate readers in Years 7–8 were invited to try out for a place on two teams of four girls each. There was immense interest and many girls were turned away as competition was fierce. There were one hundred questions and over ten surprise categories such as ‘abbreviations’, ‘baldness’, ‘famous animals’, ‘pies’, and the most challenging: ‘controversial books’. Both Saint Kentigern teams started off strong, but the Year 8s pulled ahead after choosing ‘abbreviations’ for their joker round (double points) and scoring high.

A midway intermission revealed that our Year 8 team comprised of Bella Chen, Harriet Ludbrook, Phoebe Wakelin and Sophia Pike were in the lead. Excitement grew as the girls again scored highly in the remaining five rounds, standing up for recognition of top category scores four times throughout the competition.

After three hours of intense quizzing, the suspense reached its peak as the winners were announced. Our Year 8 Saint Kentigern Girls’ Team 1 stood at the front of the stage, their jaws dropping as quizmaster Wayne Mills rewarded them with a total of one thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills, contributing to their travel fund for the national round in Wellington on June 17.

This was a well-earned win achieved through not only a lifetime love of reading for these girls, but also a busy six months preparation that saw reading efforts doubled, bags of library books taken home for school holidays, lunchbreaks filled with team practices, and strategic reading across a variety of literary genres.

They subsequently brought this collective enthusiasm and fantastic teamwork to the National Competition on 17 June. They faced New Zealand’s top teams vying for the top place and chance to compete in the 2023 Kids’ Lit Quiz World Final in Havelock North. We are incredibly proud of their efforts as the most successful Lit Quiz team the Girls’ School has ever had.