The “Deep Diving Dolphins” from Redmond’s Audubon Elementary School are the Grand Champions of King County in the Global Reading Challenge for 2010.

This annual competition is sponsored by King County Library System (KCLS) and the KCLS Foundation. Each year, King County librarians select 10 books to be included in the challenge. The KCLS Foundation then provides free copies of the 10 books to each student participant, as each team must answer questions based on these ten books as part of the challenge.

This year, Audubon had six teams of seven students each participating in the competition. Team members must be in fourth or fifth grade.

The “Deep Diving Dolphins” first won the school competition and then became Lake Washington School District Champions. Then they became North King County Champions. Now they are the King County Champions.

This year, the team is comprised of fifth grade girls. The students are Tessa Fujisaki (captain), Simran Bhandarkar, Harriet Clarke, Tom Firstenberg, Natasha Foti, Tessa Hisel and Alice Zhu.

This is the eighth year that Audubon has participated in the Global Reading Challenge.

Their coach, teacher-librarian Elisabeth Wicks, commented, “I am so very proud of this team. They came into the library every day to practice and eat their lunch together. They also had some Saturday practices with some very helpful parent volunteers. This team is amazing because they are bright and competitive, yet they had fun at the same time. They also showed great teamwork and sportsmanship.”