A love of books has paid off handsomely for this year's national spelling bee champion.
Auckland schoolgirl Isobella Nicholls today became New Zealand's 11th Spelling Bee Champion after competing in 11 rounds of arduous spelling against 17 of the country's top teenage spellers.
As well as earning the title, the 14-year-old Carmel College student pocketed $5000 prize money.
The newly-crowned champ correctly spelled "meritocracy", meaning "Government selected according to merit".
In the lead-up, Nicholls displayed her orthography skills by calmly spelling words including "leprechaun", "demagogue", "recidivist" and "oligopoly".