NHHS facilitates and fosters students that enjoy reading outside of class in Book Club and Battle of the Books.
Book Club has existed here at NHHS long before the current sponsor of the club, Ms. Trejo took over in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Book Club is run by students who decide what books to read and has the president, Sofiya Vasquez, keep everyone on track and engage in discussions within their weekly meetings.
Vasquez has been a member of Book Club for all four years of her high school experience. “I began as a regular member in my freshman year at NHHS, and then was promoted to secretary and then president junior and senior year.”
She continues, “I joined the club during quarantine and just grew my dedication to reading over the years. There was no reason for me to quit, so I decided to lead the club and share my inspirations with other members.
Em Herrera who has been a member of Book Club for two years feels, “A huge motivation of mine to continue going to these clubs is how the book club president — shoutout Sofiya — keeps us so invested and interactive throughout the meeting.”
There is some overlap between participants of the Battle of the Books competition and members of Book Club. Since both groups are based on the desire to read, the reasons for the overlap in membership is obvious.
Vanessa Montes stated, “Book Club helped prepare for the Battle of the Books competition by reading one of the books together as a group. For example, Book Club read The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes together as a group because it was one of the books listed.”
Because Book Club is a separate group itself from Battle of the Books, members do not just read books listed on the Battle of the Books list.
Vasquez lists, “We’ve read young adult fiction such as The Sun Is Also A Star, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Silent Patient.”
Although Book Club does not require members of it to join the Battle of the Books, many still do out of their shared love for literature. With around an average turnout at book club being around 20-30 regular members, Book Club is full of passionate students who truly enjoy reading.
The recent Battle of the Books competition was the first one that was hosted in person since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students were able to see and meet their competitors rather than simply competing online with screens dividing them.
Montes feels, “Even though I have participated in the Battle of the Books competition before on Zoom, this recent competition was a new experience to me because it was in person. I enjoyed having the competition in person. The competition was very organized and it went by smoothly. I also liked the fact that we got to keep some books.”
In the Battle of the Books, groups of students created teams and competed against other teams created here at NHHS and other participating LAUSD schools. They competed in answering jeopardy style based questions on the list of books the teams had read.
Book Club also has an annual field trip, and this year the club is going to the Huntington Library. The library is home to multitudes of books and has other things like plants that would cater to anyone’s interests.
Herrera expresses, “The field trip was amazing! There were so many beautiful plants everywhere and the museums were so interesting with all the old books and artwork!”
Vasquez states, “I hadn’t been to the Huntington [Library] in a very long time. My favorite part of the trip was walking through the American Art Gallery — I took so many pictures!”
