By Isabell Macrina
Hometown Weekly Reporter
With the new year fast approaching, it is important to take time and look at the year we all had. Westwood Public Library (WPL) found a fun way to reflect on the year, with a trivia competition! Ready to test your knowledge on the key pop-culture moments, librarian Rosie brought folks together for a friendly competition with some fun prizes, and with snacks too!
The trivia was broken into five rounds of ten multiple choice questions. The categories consisted of world events, books of the year (of course, we were in a library after all), sports, movies and TV, and music and pop culture. You could compete by yourself or with a team, especially if you each have a different interest to give yourselves the best chance!
The different categories had the competitors wavering in confidence, but each had something that led to a satisfactory celebration. One woman in the crowd killed the sports category, while the movies and tv spanned everything from Netflix releases to the final Downton Abbey movie that had most of the crowd scratching their heads. Books spanned from the latest Emily Henry novel to self-help books, and even asking how many books Martha Stewart has published as of 2025 (101 can you believe it?). World events was everything from the longest congressional speech delivered (with the record this year going for over 26 hours) and which word won the national spelling bee! Turns out it was éclaircissement, and thirteen-year-old Faizan Zaki from Texas won with the word in the final round.
The two groups that won the trivia contest, both getting over half the questions right, got to pick from the prizes; a box of Belgian chocolates, or a 500 piece bookshelf puzzle! Both groups went home happy, and the librarians showed their top books of the year on the front table, some got taken home that night! It was a fun way to look back on the year and celebrate the good that happened, and to learn some new things too!
