Balboa Middle School's Alicia Salinas eyes her medal on stage with winning teammates from left: Canan Luce of Cabrillo Middle School, Trenton Pusag-Weber of Balboa and Katherine Rollins of Cabrillo.

The irony of a winning team named the Losers was not lost on an audience of avid readers Friday at Balboa Middle School's third annual Battle of the Books.

The battle tested small teams of middle school students from across Ventura on their knowledge of 30 books, in nine rounds of "Family Feud"-style competition.

The contest was the fun, flashy finale to a months-long national reading program called America's Battle of the Books, a voluntary reading incentive program for students in grades four to 12. According to the Web site, the program's purpose "is simply to encourage students to read good books and have fun while competing with peers."

Balboa Middle School teachers adopted it nearly three years ago to promote reading, said Sharon Fleur, a reading specialist at Portola Elementary School.

In the second year, the teachers invited Ventura's other middle schools — Anacapa, Cabrillo and De Anza — to join in the program, which provides schools with reading lists and contest questions for a small annual fee.

This year's Battle of the Books brought together 71 students from the four middle schools for a six-hour event at Balboa.

"It's a good way to meet kids from other schools," said Erin Keyes, 12, a seventh-grader at Balboa.

Students were randomly placed into teams of four or five for the battle.

The mixed-school teams created team identities, each with a captain, flag, and a name based on a letter of the alphabet.

In the final round on the cafeteria stage, team "N for No Names" battled it out with team "L for Losers."

Teams worked up to the finale by competing one on one in a series of rounds held in separate classrooms.

They answered questions like these:

n "In what book does the warden wear nail polish laced with snake venom?" Answer: "Holes" by Louis Sachar.

n "In what book do we meet coon's ghost?" Answer: "Where the Red Fern Grows" by Wilson Rawls.

Sami Squires, an eighth-grader at Cabrillo, read all 30 books. Her favorite: "Loud Silence of Francine Green."

"It's nice to be around kids who love to read as much as you do," said Samantha Corbett, 13, an eighth-grader at Anacapa Middle School.

"It helps kids that do love to read to feel like they're not the only ones; it's OK," said Linda Dillon, sixth-grade science and resource language arts teacher at Balboa who helped coordinate the battle. Dillon said the students are at an age when some of them feel more like melting into the woodwork than standing out for being smart. Battle of the Books "allows them to be an avid reader."

To participate, Balboa students had to read at least 10 books and attend five lunchtime book meetings, where teachers on the battle committee gave lively 15-minute talks about books on the list.

Chance Dingman, 13, a seventh-grader at Balboa, read 12 books. His favorite battle list book, "Stormbreaker," featured a protagonist who had to do things he didn't want to do. That lesson, Chance said, helped him understand that certain things in life — like schoolwork — must get done whether he wants to do them or not.

On the Net:

http://www.battleofthebooks.org