Texas 2016 Letters About Literature Winners!
2018 Winners|2017 Winners|2016 Winners
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Over 1,800 Texas students entered the Letters About Literature Contest this year. Congratulations to all the winners. First through Third place winners are listed below. First place winners have advanced to national judging!
All 4th-12th graders are invited to participate! Read a book or poem and write a letter. You could be on this list next year! Submissions are due to the Library of Congress by December of 2016. For more information about the contest, see details below.
Teachers, librarians, parents, neighbors, and beyond— please share this opportunity and cultivate a love of reading. As you will read in the winners’ entries, this contest takes words off pages, creates a heart connection to story, and organically cultivates life-long readers.
Level I Grades 4-6
Placement |
Winner |
Letter |
Hometown |
Piece |
Author |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st Place |
Benjamin Hu |
Sugar Land, TX |
“The Bad Beginning” |
Lemony Snicket |
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“Only when a clamshell opens up can you tell if there is a pearl inside.” |
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2nd Place |
|
Houston, TX |
“I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban” |
Malala Yousafzai |
|
“My life is different from yours.” |
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3rd Place (tie) |
|
Dallas, TX |
“‘Hope’ Is The Thing With Feathers” |
Emily Dickinson |
|
“The first time I read your poem, ‘Hope Is the Thing with Feathers,’ |
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3rd Place (tie) |
Eladio Zamora |
Pharr, TX |
“Esperanza Rising” |
Pam Muñoz Ryan |
|
“I would like to share my life story about my grandpa…” |
Level II Grades 7-8
Placement |
Winner |
Letter |
Hometown |
Piece |
Author |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st Place |
Sarah Helmbrecht |
Austin, TX |
“The Beginning of Everything” |
Robyn Schneider |
|
“I read the beginning of everything on an airplane.” |
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2nd Place |
Lauren Hockema |
Austin, TX |
“Bridge to Terabithia” |
Katherine Paterson |
|
“Try harder, not like that, just go do something else!” |
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3rd Place |
Ainsley Murnahan |
Keller, TX |
“Perfect” |
Ellen Hopkins |
|
“Your book, Perfect, has made me realize that the world |
Level III Grades 9-12
Placement |
Winner |
Letter |
Hometown |
Piece |
Author |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st Place |
Tiffany Wang |
Denton, TX |
“The Year of the Dog” |
Grace Lin |
|
“Your book saved my life – or, at least half, of it.” |
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2nd Place |
Alex Montellano |
Paris, Texas |
“The Giving Tree” |
Shel Silverstein |
|
“The open page of my copy of The Giving Tree begins with…” |
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3rd Place |
Salma Ruiz |
Mission, Texas |
“A Thousand Splendid Suns” |
Khaled Hosseini |
|
“All my life I have dealt with one simple yet confining and limiting fact…” |