Reading Bowl is one of the many competitive clubs here at Chamblee. The club reads a list of books each year to then be able to compete in a gameshow-like competition against other high schools in the area. 

“There are five contestants per school, and it’s like Jeopardy, where you click in,” said Ms. Christine Holland, the librarian, sponsor, and coach for the Reading Bowl Club. “They ask a question [about one of the books] and the first person to click in answers the question, and then [the team] receives points.”

The team has been climbing up the ranks over the last couple of years, and this year, they won the 1st place prize at the DeKalb Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl on Feburary 7th, 2026.

“I think it went really, really well,” said Julianne Lee (‘27). “Honestly, I think this is the most fun I’ve had at a competition throughout all of high school. It is mostly because I felt much more secure in what I knew about the books; I felt like I was really contributing, and everyone was working together really well. We had a really good mix of people who were specializing in different books. Overall, I felt really confident in how we were going to perform.”

While most members felt confident in their preparation, a few setbacks occurred during the actual competition.

“[I heard] that there was one moderator whom [the competing members] could not understand at all,” said Ronit Nemenman (‘26), the former logistics captain, who unfortunately couldn’t make it to the district competition. “Apparently, they couldn’t hear her talk, and they couldn’t understand her questions.”

Alongside setbacks in the actual competition, there were also some difficulties to smooth out during the preparation.

“The hardest part of the competition is just memorizing everything. The questions are like ‘What color was the scarf that was only mentioned once on page 300?’ You just have to pay attention to really small details,” said Maya Heffernan (‘28).

In past years, Lakeside High School has consistently won the competitions, but this year the tables turned, and the Chamblee team took home the win.

“Lakeside was very strong because they had one senior who was really, really good, but he graduated last year,” said Lee. “We were on even footing this year, and so we were able to score higher than them.”

Many members joined because of their positive experiences with the team in the past. 

“I’ve been doing [Reading Bowl] since seventh grade, and I had a really fun time last year at the competition in eighth grade,” said Luke Kim (‘29). “I just wanted to keep doing it this year.”

Other members decided to join to broaden their own reading horizons and venture outside of their comfort genres.

“I joined in the first place because I really like reading, and it was just a good way to get into books I normally wouldn’t read. Last year, we read The Killing Code [for Reading Bowl], which I normally never would’ve [picked up], but it was really good,” said Heffernan.

After their win at the first competition, the team then competed in the metro-regional competition on February 28th and won 1st place again. This news came as unexpected to members. 

“I actually started to cry,” said Ms. Holland. “I was so overwhelmed, and I was so proud of everyone, but I was very excited.”

Most of the team agreed, however, that the district-level competition went better than the regional one.

“[Both competitions] went really well,” said Samia Eva (‘27), the logistics captain, “but I definitely think we did better in the first round than the second because we were getting lots of points every round, and you could tell we were winning. In the second [competition], we were more evenly matched, so we weren’t as confident. We didn’t think we would get first place; we thought we would get third.”

The team then won first place at the county competition for the first time on March 21st!