Young authors from Vermont and Virginia take top honors!
Today I am thrilled to announce the names of the two Grand Prize winners in my fourth annual “Be a Famous Writer” contest, a nationwide creative-writing competition for children held every September.
Grace Lane Adithi Ramakrishnan
Grace, age 8, from Vermont, won top honors in the 4-to-8 year-old category for The Magic Piano, a fantasy about a piano that can read its owner’s mind and mimic the sound of other instruments, weather conditions and even the 12-Days-of-Christmas characters.
Adithi , age 12, from Virginia, won in the 9-13 age group for Home Perfect Home, a fable detailing the adventures of a bird searching the far reaches of the globe for true happiness.
This year, I’m pleased to give awards not only to these talented, young authors but also to their schools. Northfield Elementary in Vermont and Farmell Station Middle School in Virginia are the lucky schools that will benefit from these talented young writers. Each grand prize winner’s school will receive $300 to purchase books for their libraries from our sponsor, BuyerTopia. And what school in this economy couldn’t use more books?
The Grand Prize winners will have their stories produced as videos featuring me, Mrs. P, which will be presented on my free, critically-acclaimed website. Original artwork by award-winning illustrator Robin Robinson (also known to some as Robin E. Kaplan will help bring the stories to life. She just recently did The Wizard of Oz for Penguin Books. Here are some samples for the two grand prize winning stories.
The Magic Piano Home Perfect Home
The videos will be posted on my website (www.MrsP.com) beginning in March in celebration of Read Across America Day, my favorite day of the year. Each winner will also receive an actual bound copy of the story and illustrations made possible by sponsor Polka Dots Publishing. A copy of the book will be donated to the child’s school library in their honor.
The winners for this year’s contest were selected by a panel of celebrity judges: Academy Award-winning actress and reading advocate Julia Roberts; Melina Gerosa Bellows, the Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of Books, Kids and Family at National Geographic; and Mary Frances Smith-Reynolds, who teaches second grade at Ivanhoe Elementary School in Silver Lake, CA.
MrsP.com was launched in 2008 to encourage a love of reading. The website is the recipient of the American Library Association’s "Great Website for Kids."
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