2014 Letters About Literature Program Winners Announced
Letters About Literature, a national reading and writing program that asks young people in grades 4 through 12 to write to an author (living or deceased) about how his or her book affected their lives, has announced its 2014 winners.
More than 50,000 young readers from across the country participated in this year’s Letters About Literature initiative, a reading-promotion program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
This year’s winners come from all parts of the country and wrote to authors as diverse as Dr. Seuss, Sharon Draper, Anne Frank, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell and Jhumpa Lahiri.
The top letters in each competition level for each state were chosen. Then, national and national honor winners were chosen from each of the three competition levels: Level 1 (grades 4-6), Level 2 (grades 7-8) and Level 3 (grades 9-12).
On the state level, the program is sponsored by affiliate state centers for the book. National judges include published authors, editors, publishers, librarians and teachers.
Following are this year’s winners:
Level 1
National Prize (Tie):
Becky Miller’s letter to Dr. Seuss, author of "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish." Miller is from Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Jayanth V. Uppaluri’s letter to Sharon Draper, author of "Out of My Mind." Uppaluri is from Clayton, Missouri.
Level 2
National Prize:
Jisoo Choi’s letter to Anne Frank, author of "The Diary of a Young Girl." Choi is from Ellicott City, Maryland.
National Honor:
Jane Wang’s letter to Ray Bradbury, author of "Fahrenheit 451." Wang is from Chandler, Arizona.
Level 3
National Prize:
Devi Acharya’s letter to George Orwell, author of "Animal Farm" and "1984." Acharya is from University City, Missouri.
National Honor:
Riddhi Sangam’s letter to Jhumpa Lahiri, author of "The Namesake." Sangam is from Saratoga, California.
Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs, publications and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov.
The Library’s Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to "stimulate public interest in books and reading," is a national force for reading and literacy promotion. A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading-promotion partners and through the Young Readers Center and the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit www.Read.gov.
