One book at a time, 55 students at Loyal Heights Elementary School are now competing in the Global Reading Challenge with the hope of making the city championships.

Two other Ballard schools, Adams and Whittier Elementary are also taking part in the challenge. Forty Seattle Public Schools are competing in the program and most are fourth and fifth graders. The challenge is a program of the Seattle Public Library Foundation and the King County Library.

The Mannix Canby Foundation has provided $45,000 to buy books for the Global Reading Challenge for a three year period.

Books read by the three Ballard schools were paid for by a $1,000 donation from the Ballard Rotary. The Ballard Rotary money was used to purchase 240 books for the 24 teams from the three schools.

Teams must include some students with lower reading skill levels.

"One of our (Ballard Rotary) international focus is literacy. This is one of the best ways to promote literacy," said Ballard Rotary member Terry Collings.

Collings is a member of the Ballard Rotary's public relations committee and is a Board member. He is also the executive director of the Seattle Public Library Foundation.

"The Ballard Rotary participates to get kids reading as much as possible and provide motivation for kids to read," said Collings.

Ten books are included in the challenge. The books are diverse in subject matter were selected by the Seattle Public Library Foundation. They include books by an African American and Hispanic author. One book is set in Afghanistan.

Under the Red Sun, is written by Graham Salisbury and is about a boy named Tomi Nakaji living in Hawaii three months before the invasion of Pearl Harbor.

"They tend to be fourth and fifth grade reading level chapter books," said Loyal Heights librarian Sean Harvey.

Harvey introduces the challenge to students when they visit the library.

"I tell them it's a lot of fun. If they join, they are expected to stick with it and be part of the team," he said.

"We ask each student to read a minimum of four books. It's enough of a challenge. Some read all ten books."

Loyal Heights has eight teams with six to seven kids on each team. Teachers will quiz students on the books in late February or early March at their own school. The questions on the quiz are based on the book's subject or storylines.

From there the top teams from each school advances to a challenge conducted by King County Library staff. Students will compete against other schools and the top seven teams will meet in a city of Seattle final in April.

The winner goes to the Grand Challenge against teams from Canada and Michigan in May.

Last year, a team from Whittier Elementary won the 2006 City Final. They named their team "The Bookworms."

"It's fun. You can learn more words that way. The Global Reading Challenge is not about competition, it's about having fun and reading more books," said fourth grader Liz Radford.

"Our kids are going crazy about this. It's the most kids we have ever had. The kids are real excited," said Harvey.

Some kids read a book in one weekend. Others take a week to read a book.

"It's a fun way to learn. It's good for imagination. You can picture what happens in your head," said fourth grade student Natalie Evidon. She also likes history books.

Sharing stories among his friends is a factor for Jacob Parisi. "You can talk to other kids about it," he said.

Dean Wong may be reached at dino@robinsonnews.com or 783.1244.