DURBAN - Four pupils of Westville Senior Primary School were recently crowned the winners of the 2022 South African finals of the Kids’ Lit Quiz.
The quiz was sponsored by Exclusive Books and was hosted at Roedean School in Joburg on Saturday.
South African co-ordinator Marj Brown said each team consisted of four pupils between the ages of 10 and 13 from eight regional teams.
Brown said that before the finals a total of 496 pupils from about 78 schools participated.
The readers who won their respective rounds in Joburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Gqeberha and Knysna went on to compete in the final.
She said despite the quiz not being held in 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions, this year had seen an enthusiastic return of participating schools.
“While the pandemic still prevents the quiz’s New Zealand-based founder and quizmaster Wayne Mills from travelling to conduct the rounds, he is still providing us with the thought-provoking questions that challenge and inspire the teams.
“He will quiz them on anything ever written in English literature for the past 2 000 years, so these readers must really know their stuff – and they do,” said Brown.
Brown said as a result of Covid-19 travel restrictions there will be no world final again this year.
“Exclusive Books hopes to involve these young winners in local book events, to profile their excellence,” she said.
According to Brown, South Africa has always performed strongly against its global peers in the annual Kids’ Lit Quiz World Final.
“In the past 18 years, the SA team has won three times. However, the real value of this quiz is the impact it has on reading,” she said.
She said quiz contestants read avidly and broadly, attend book clubs, and build up detailed knowledge of authors and genres, as well as the awards and prizes these books earn.
“So many children have come to thank me for making this quiz available in SA, and parents often talk of how reading has given their child confidence and a place of belonging at school,” Brown said, adding that pupils not only appreciate the joy of reading but also the recognition they gain through reading.
Brown said an added benefit of the quiz over the years is that school libraries have stocked a wide range of books.
She said principals have also attended the quiz.
Despite the negative impact the pandemic has had on children, Brown said the scores attained by the pupils in the quiz has shown that reading has remained an important pastime.
The quiz has been conducted in almost a dozen countries including New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Nigeria, the UK, the US and Canada and has been held in South Africa since 2004.
