TSD Middle School Students Take 2021 Troybery Virtual

You’ve heard of the Newbery Reading Award, but have you heard of the Troybery? A mock-Newbery medal program, Troybery has encouraged Troy middle schoolers since 2000 to read the best middle grade books published that year and then vote on their favorites. The contest usually begins in the fall, with students reading nominated books and then voting for them in a March Madness-style tournament. But this year was different.

“Our ultimate goal is to get kids excited about and interested in reading,” said media specialist Christine Chatel. But it couldn’t happen in person this year due to COVID. This was the first year that Troybery was all virtual—students could access e-book and audio book copies of Troybery and Newbery books online via a special app, track their reading on a digital form, watch video book talks made by the media specialists, vote online, and view the ceremony online.

For the 21st Annual Troybery Award Program, TSD middle school media specialists Christina Chatel and Kathy Loch decided to choose a reading theme that would make it easy for all students, whether in-person or virtual, to access books to participate. In a normal year, the Troybery program would focus on the best current books of the calendar year, but the pandemic led our media specialists to take Troybery in a different direction.

“Team Troybery versus Team Newbery” became the theme for the 21st annual Troybery Award Program, focusing on what originally inspired Troybery: the Newbery Award, given each year by the American Library Association to the best children’s books. Mrs. Chatel and Ms. Loch challenged students to read (or re-read) the Newbery AND the Troybery winners from 2001-2020, and in April, middle schoolers voted on whether they liked the Troybery or the Newbery winner best for each year. The winners were: for the Troybery—The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins; for the Newbery – New Kid by Jerry Craft. To see the exciting reveal, visit: https://youtu.be/gwmWe-vu9Ag.

And as is tradition, a special guest author was invited to SKYPE with the students in realtime. This year, Alicia D. Williams, author of Newberry winner Genesis Begins Again spent an hour virtually with students, sharing her story of how she became a story-teller, and encouraged students to have the courage to be “Bold, daring, courageous and DREAM big.” And to not let others’ opinions sway or distract them from writing. She took questions from the students and ended her presentation with a quote from the Wizard of Oz: “You’ve always had the power, my dear, you just had to learn and find it yourself.”

While different for sure like many things this year, Loch and Chatel felt this year’s Troybery program was a success: “The 2021 Troybery reading program involved timeless award winners and classics, books that have been cherished over the years by generations of readers; many of the titles were already on students’ bookshelves at home or available with a click of a button on the iPad, making for easy access and affording students a chance to snuggle up with some of their favorite books, discover new titles, and find comfort in getting lost in well-written story.”

For more information about the Troybery program, visit http://troymiddleschoolmediacenter.weebly.com/troybery.html.

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