Photo of the Day: Village Readers Take Honors in Book Battle

Babylon Public Library youths took second place in Suffolk County’s 15th annual Battle of the Books competition.

Every summer, Suffolk County libraries gather with teams of 6 young adult (grades 6-9) players to test their trivia mettle on eight selected books. Each library team reads the same eight books during the summer with a culmination trivia challenge in August at the Stony Brook University Javits Center. On August 13, 36 Suffolk County libraries participated until the competition was whittled down to the Final Four teams: Babylon Public Library, Hampton Bays Public Library, Patchogue-Medford Library, and Smithtown Library, Commack/
Kings Park branch. The Babylon Sleeping Overlanders team went on to win second place in the competition.

The Sleeping Overlanders also tied with the West Islip Public Library team for the Team Choice Award. This award, voted on by all the Battlers, is presented to the team that is chosen as the favorite to play with during the Battle.


Members of the winning team were: Victoria Buonagura, Paige Bzdyk, Mohankomar (Kummi) Chintarlapalli, Jennifer Finelli, Sophia Sherman, and Jake Zukaitis. Alternate players were: Chloe Bzdyk, Emily Guerra,
and Dominique Jones. The team was coached by Young Adult Librarian Lori Ludlow, and assistant coaches (seniors) Alex Faccibene and Emily Moran.

The team and the Babylon Public Library also wish to thank the Friends of the Babylon Public Library for their donation to this year’s Battle of the Books team. The donation allowed the library to purchase extra copies of the Battle books for the students.