Battle of the Books with Cranium CoRE

Playing a TV style game show in teams using mobile devices or radio frequency (RF) devices, one per team, to answer questions that appear on the game show image that is projected on a large screen so all the participants can easily see it. The questions that are used for this part of the process are most often higher order thinking type questions that require more than just a literal response about what is remembered from the text.

As you are by now aware, this Cranium CoRE method is an open book format. The goal is to drive the students into the text to find their answers and prove them.

That is the difference between a Cranium CoRE battle and a trivia buzzer round. All teams have a set number of seconds and three attempts to answer correctly. The point value goes down with attempts. The issue is not speed, but correctness. Every team answers every question, so a battle is never decided by one fast thumb, and the host can pause between questions for the discussion that makes the method work: If you stop there, however, and do not engage these students in a discussion to defend their answers, you are missing a huge opportunity to take them to another stratospheric level of thinking.

The game sets our member schools have published trace the whole season: school (building-level) battles, district semi-finals, district finals and even state-level games, for grades 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12, year after year since 2011-2012. Florida districts build their battles on the Sunshine State Young Readers Award (SSYRA) lists for grades 3-5 and 6-8 and the Florida Teens Read list for high school, plus the Guys Read / Boys Read battles that get reluctant readers to the table.

Pinellas County Schools

Pinellas County Schools introduces Battle of the Books to teachers and students in grades 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12 through the school Library Media program. Each year's titles come from the SSYRA lists; students read and quiz on at least eight of the chosen books to sit the qualifying test, qualifying tests in February and March decide who represents the school, school battles follow, semi-final battles determine which schools advance, and the district battle is held in April as part of National School Library Month.

School media centers describe the game itself in their own words: Skyview Elementary calls it "Cranium Core, an exciting game designed to encourage our readers to delve into the text" with "quiz bowl" style questions that students must support with evidence from the text, and San Jose Elementary's 2026-2027 battle page simply notes: "The game format itself continues to use Cranium Core." Pinellas schools also run the Boys Read Book Battle for boys in grades 3-5 on the same platform.

Published Pinellas sets in Cranium CoRE include "2025-2026 PCS Elementary School Battle", "Oakhurst SSYRA School Battle", "Ponce BOB 24-25", "Anona 2025 Battle of the Books", "SAE 2025-2026 BOB" and "District Battle of the Books 3-5 / 6-8 / 9-12 2024-2025".

School District of Manatee County

Manatee County runs a single district-wide Battle of the Books for elementary, middle and high schools, hosted on Cranium CoRE and emceed by Andy Larson. Braden River Middle School's team handout describes it as a quiz-style game show based on the books, hosted by Andy Larson, President and Founder of Cranium CoRE. Teams read the SSYRA and Florida Teens Read titles, win their school battle, then meet at the district event: the 2019 countywide battle at State College of Florida (won by Anna Maria Elementary's fifth-grade team); the 3rd annual battle on April 21, 2021, played virtually by ten Manatee schools; and the 4th annual battle at Braden River High School with 13 elementary, middle and high school teams.