So for a while I have been bouncing around the idea of a March Madness style passive program in my head. I decided that 2022 was going to be the year I put something together and Battle of the Books was born. I wanted to do a whole bracket thing where my customers could vote for their favorites and see which titles advanced. But what books would I pick? Picture books? Chapter books? Classics? I considered using lists like the New York Public Library's 100 Picture Books everyone should know, but I wanted to come up with something my families could be involved in and really get people invested and excited.
I created a file in Google Forms where people could submit up to 20 of their favorite picture books. From there I compiled a list of responses. The top 32 books that received the most votes were entered randomly into a bracket generator. Once the matchups were set, I created new entries in Google Forms where people voted in the first round, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, and The Championship Round. Throughout the month of March I displayed titles and kept everyone informed of the progress. It ended up gaining popularity and quite a faithful following. There were some surprises, some close votes, and some heartbreaking losses. There was even a formal protest lodged by my 8 1/2 year old daughter who declared that she would no longer be voting after the elimination of her favorite book, Bark, George. She later decided that the fate of her second favorite book in the championship round was far too important to idly sit by and voted for The Very Hungry Caterpillar at zero hour. She firmly believes that her single vote determined the entire outcome. While it did end up winning, it had a comfortable margin of victory.
Here's how it all went from inception to the one left standing.
We had a total of 225 titles submitted for consideration. The top 32 most suggested ones were randomly entered into brackets and the matchups were announced.
Round One
The first matchup paired This is Not My Hat with The Rainbow Fish. It was a tight battle, with This is Not My Hat winning by 3 votes and 51.2% of the vote.
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom beat Goodnight Moon with 57% of the vote.
Corduroy beat Caps for Sale with 63.6% of the vote.
Harold and the Purple Crayon drew itself a victory with 66.1% while The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors chose the wrong option.
Tap the Magic Tree edged out Bark, George by 5 votes and crushed the spirits of my daughter in the process.
Alexander's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day wasn't so bad after all. He beat Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs with 62.8% of the vote.
The Crayons just wouldn't quit and beat Hair Love 62 to 38 percent.
The Book with No Pictures maybe should have included some. It lost to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie 61 to 39 percent.
The bracket randomly paired The Very Hungry Caterpillar with That is NOT a Good Idea. That turned out to be a bad idea. The caterpillar won with a whopping 79% of the vote.
This next pairing broke my heart and crushed my soul. It was so hard to choose! The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs huffed, puffed and blew down Dragons Love Tacos by a 6 vote margin. Looks like everyone else struggled to choose as well!
Grover must have felt like Super Grover when The Monster at the End of this Book had 67% of the vote over Curious George.
The next two matchups were blowout victories. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (91%) vs. Smashy Town (9%) and The Snowy Day (84%) vs A Chair for My Mother (16%) were called pretty early on in the week.
Where the Wild Things Are (66%) had a pretty decisive victory over Black is a Rainbow Color (34%).
It was indeed the last stop for The Last Stop on Market Street when it lost by 10 votes to The Dot.
In another heartbreaking matchup, Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes defeated Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type with 57.9% of the vote.
There were 121 responses in round one. It was a great first week. On to the Sweet 16!
Sweet 16 Round
There were some more close calls and decisive victories in the next round. Where the Wild Things Are would begin to emerge as a final pick in quite a few customer and staff brackets, but it only beat out competitor The Snowy Day by 3 votes. We had 101 responses this round.
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (65%) vs. This is Not My Hat (35%)
Corduroy (59%) vs. Harold and the Purple Crayon (41%). Poor Harold would draw no more in this competition.
Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day (53%) vs. Tap the Magic Tree (47%). The good days just keep on coming for our buddy, Alexander.
The Day the Crayons Quit (51%) vs. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (49%). This is another pairing that came down to just 3 votes.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (66%) vs. The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs (34%)
The Monster at the End of This Book (39.6%) vs. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (60.4%). Sadly Grover was no match for the infamous Pigeon. You can't tell him no!
The Dot (30.7%) vs. Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes (69.3%). The Dot really felt the unfortunate pairing of this duo. The randomizer set the wheels in motion for heartbreak.
Elite 8 Round
The pairings in this round were brutal. So many tough choices and agonizing decisions. One of our staff members doubled down on his overall pick of Where the Wild Things Are, swearing up and down that it would be our winner. It was up against Pete the Cat, so you know the competition was fierce. It was tied for the longest time until I added the last of our handwritten ballots. Kevin's bracket would remain unbusted for another day. Where the Wild Things Are won by a single vote, the very last vote entered! There were 105 responses this round, and here's how the rest of the voting went down.
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (55%) vs. Corduroy (45%). I will admit to having a very tough time with this one. Corduroy is a childhood favorite, but I read Chicka Chicka during the interview where I was hired to be a librarian. I went Corduroy...
Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day (40%) vs. The Day the Crayons Quit (60%). Alexander's streak of good days came to an end, and the crayons just would not quit!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (62%) vs. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (38%). It took a classic to take down the pigeon who had been dominating in previous rounds.
Final Four
Yowza. This is where things got crazy. Our book display was getting cleaned out every day. There was once an honest to goodness LINE to vote! People had their favorites, and everyone swore their pick would take it all. Would our staff member, Kevin end up happy or heartbroken when all was said and done? Sadly, he ended up with a busted bracket when Where the Wild Things Are was finally chewed up and swallowed by The Very Hungry Caterpillar. What I thought to be a tight race ended up being a 68/32 split. A total of 119 voted in this penultimate round.
Our other pairing started out pretty close and stayed that way for the beginning of the week, but the crayons had to admit defeat in the end, losing with 43.7% of the vote to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. The Day the Crayons Quit had finally arrived.
The Championship Round
You can almost hear "The Final Countdown" by Europe playing in the background. Game on! Battle stations ready! This is it! With 141 responses, this was our biggest total of voters yet. People were passionate this round. Some people even abstained from voting in this final round because it was just too difficult decision. I even got a handwritten ballot with the final two crossed out and Where the Wild Things Are written in! Kevin, was it you? :)
This was also the round that my daughter decided to end her voting boycott because the stakes were just too high! She would avenge Bark, George with her second favorite book taking the crown, and it did just that! The Very Hungry Caterpillar won with 59% of the vote. I'll admit that I was pretty surprised. I thought it would be much closer, but surprises seemed to be the name of the game in the final rounds of this competition. Congratulations to our champion!
Thus concludes what is now known as the first annual Battle of the Books because we are definitely going to be doing this again next year. The whole voting aspect seemed to be something that our customers really enjoyed and were invested in. It got me thinking about what else we could vote on. First things that came to mind include coming up with a name for our lion (big lion head art piece), coming up with a 100th anniversary book list to go along with our summer reading theme, and take and make craft ideas, but I'm sure my active imagination will come up with plenty more!
