While March can appear like it is all about buzzer beaters, fouls, glory, and failure, the school library is countering this with their own alley oop. 

“One of Ms. McCarthy’s goals is to make the library an inviting place for the students and interactive,” the assistant librarian Nikki Kong said. “I always try and figure out something I can do that requires student participation and the March Madness seemed like a fun [idea].” 

Over the past few months Kong has been contemplating which books to use.

“Our library computer system does not keep track of popular check outs so I was, over the last couple of months mentally keeping track of what books got checked out a lot and then I tried to pit similar stories against each other,” Kong said.

The completion started with 16 books and the winners were announced on Friday.

“The books that became the Elite Eight are Throne of Glass, Harry Potter, To Kill a Mockingbird, Divergent, The Fault in Our Stars, City of Bones, Romeo and Juliet, and The Maze Runner,” sophomore Sabina Smith said. 

These books will face off each other next week, so stop by the library and vote!

“The voting takes place on one of our other little carts where I’ve got all the books lined up,” Kong said. 

What has made this initiative such a three pointer is the student participation.

“We’ve had a lot of participation. You put that out there and you never know how high school students are going to respond and we’ve had a lot of little tally marks put in so its fun,” Kong said. 

This idea seems like a positive and engaging activity for students

“I have enjoyed it because it was really cool seeing what books people were reading and which ones they liked the most,” Smith said.

That being said there is always something to be improved.

“I think overall the contest was well-organized, but it would be great if next year there were 32 books instead of just 16 because that would make it much more interesting,” Smith said. 

All in all, this activity seems to have met the goal of student interaction, who knows what next month will bring. 

“If anybody has ideas for ways the library can be more participatory I would love to hear it because I’m always looking for ideas for my display cases,” Kong said..