State Library of Kansas
150 Years of Outstanding Service
Kathleen Sebelius, Governor
Christie P. Brandau, State Librarian
For more information, contact:
Kansas Center for the Book
800.432.3919, kcfb@kslib.info
Overland Park Teen Wins Kansas Center for the Book
Writing Award
Corinne Andresen, a seventh grade student at Oxford Middle School, received the top honor in this year’s Kansas Letters About Literature reading and writing initiative. Judges recommended Andresen’s letter to Madeline L’Engle, author of A Swiftly Tilting Planet, as the first place winner in Level II competition for children in grades 7-8. Andresen’s winning letter advances for national competition.
“Thank you, Mrs. L’Engle, for writing A Swiftly Tilting Planet,” wrote the 12-year-old reader. “It has entirely changed my perspective of people, and the concept of war.”
Letters About Literature is a reading and writing promotion program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, presented in partnership with Target Stores. In Kansas, the program is administered by the Kansas Center for the Book. Judges are all Fellows or representatives of Affiliates of the Kansas Center for the Book.
To enter, young readers write a personal letter to an author explaining how his or her work changed their view of the world or themselves. Madeline L’Engle’s book deals with questions of nuclear war and human nature and destiny. “Before I read your book,” wrote Andresen, “I had never thought of these things. A Swiftly Tilting Planet has changed the way I see the world.”
Readers can select authors from any genre—fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic. The program has three competition levels: upper elementary, middle school, and secondary. The contest theme encourages young readers to explore his or her personal response to a book, then express that response in a creative, original way.
Almost 1,300 Kansas students in grades 4-12 entered the national Letters About Literature program. Fifty-one were selected as semi-finalists in Level II, the level at which Andresen competed.
The state winner of competition Level I (grades 4-6) was Jamie Yearout, Stilwell, for her letter to Ann Martin for A Corner of the Universe. The state winner for Level III was Ammarah Usmani, Wichita, who wrote to Firooseh Dumas about Funny in Farsi.
Kansas state winners each receive a cash award, a $50 Target gift card, and recognition by the Kansas Center for the Book at their school. Their letters are forwarded to the national competition to compete with state winners from across the U.S.
The Kansas Center for the Book promotes reading and libraries, fosters statewide literary activities, and seeks to stimulate public interest in the educational and cultural role of the book, authorship and writing. As a state affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, the Kansas Center for the Book is a nonprofit, tax-exempt program of the State Library of Kansas.
Target Stores, along with its parent company Target Corporation, gives back more than $2 million a week to local communities through grants and special programs. Since opening its first store in 1962, Target has partnered with nonprofit organizations, guests and team members to help meet community needs.