On Thursday 14th November our team plus 5 supporters, Ms Rousseau and myself, set off to Wellington College to take part in the NI Heat of the Kids Lit Quiz – a quiz all about childrens books and literature.

KLQ was founded by University professor Wayne Mills whose inspiration for the quiz was his realizaton that schools rarely reward children for reading whereas they often have prizegivings for those who excel in sport or art or dancing etc. Heats take place in  New Zealand, China, S Africa, Canada, America, Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK and the winning team from each heat competes in a National Final. The national champions then compete in the World Final, venues for which have been New Zealand, Johannesburg, Scotland and England.

Our team consisted of Ben Devlin, Eve Mc Gahan, Abi Murphy –Donnelly and Josephine O’Kane . We were up against 26 other teams from across Northern Ireland and had to answer 10 rounds of 10 questions. The scoreboard constantly changed as the quiz progressed but towards the end we could see we were climbing up the scoreboard so were delighted to be placed third, with Killicomaine Junior School scoring 84 points, Rathmore and Methodist College scoring 73 points each and Aquinas scoring 72 points.  A tie break resulted in Rathmore dropping to third place and Aquinas to 4th.

The day was rounded off with a “Favourite Book Character” and Liam Hayes’costume was chosen to win a prize.

All in all it was a very enjoyable afternoon. Good luck to Killicomaine in the next round and roll on next year’s “KLQ” !