Long story short - good things come in small packages.

Awakeri School in the Eastern Bay of Plenty educates about 350 students and has earned an international literature championship title.

Awakeri School pupils Katy White, Jessica Robbie, Jessica Schuler and Hannah van der Horst bested the top teams in the Kids Lit Quiz world final at Auckland University earlier this month.

The annual literature quiz for students aged 10–13 has celebrated the reading hobby since 1991.

Awakeri's victory was a first-time win for a New Zealand school in the worldwide competition, comprising teams from Australia, United Kingdom, South Africa, China, Canada and United States.

Representatives of the UK have won the finals four times in the last five years.

Runner-up this year was awarded to Roedean School from South Africa, while Canada's University of Toronto School placed third and Scotland's George Watson's College fourth.

Awakeri fought off last year's winners from South Africa in a nail-biting final says principal of Awakeri School, Peter Fitzgerald.

'It was a two hour event, with a break in between, like a rugby match. It was as thrilling as any rugby match I've ever seen.”

Quiz master Wayne Mills led teams through a 10 round challenge comprising seven questions each, with teams racing to answer first.

'Our team got off to a really good start, but the others caught up. At one stage we were ahead of the South African side by only three points,” says Peter.

A different theme was allocated to each round where the quizmaster would test competitors' knowledge of picture book, novel and poetry authors.

Peter says one segment quizzed contenders' familiarity with theme music from film adaptations of particular stories.

'That round threw our girls. They scored no points and the other teams began to catch up.”

One round emphasised Awakeri's ability to recognise storylines from an anonymous story.

'They got ‘The Hobbit' after just five words,” says Peter.

East Coast MP Anne Tolley offered her congratulations to the Awakeri winners.

'Awakeri Primary has set the bar for future New Zealand teams. Their win also demonstrates the world class standard of education we have in our region.

'Congratulations also to Awakeri principal Peter Fitzgerald, coach Ann Petersen and assistant coaches Irene Cronin and Margo White who have been extremely supportive of the students every step of their journey.”

The school will celebrate their hundredth anniversary next year.