Letters About Literature 2008

Letters About Literature 2008 is a national reading and writing promotion program sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress in partnership with Target and the affiliate state centers for the book. The contest is sponsored in Tennessee with support from Ingram, Frist Foundation, Metro Nashville Arts Commission, Tennessee Arts Commission, Davis-Kidd Booksellers, Vanderbilt University, Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau and National Endowment for the Humanities.

2008 Winning Entries

To read this year's first-place letters, click here.

Tennessee's Letters About Literature Winners

Level I (Grades 4-6)

  • 1st Place: Abby Glover, 4th grader from Milan, wrote to Pat Brisson about Sky Memories
  • 2nd place: Gilchrist Green, 6th grader from Nashville, wrote to Patricia Reily Giff about Pictures of Hollis Woods
  • 3rd place: Susan Huang, 4th grader from Memphis, wrote to Adeline Yen Mah about Chinese Cinderella

Level II (Grades 7-8)

  • 1st place: Megan Lee, 7th grader from Memphis, wrote to Wendelin Van Draanen about Flipped
  • 2nd place: April Perkins, 8th grader from Lake City, wrote to Stephanie Tolan about Welcome to the Ark
  • 3rd place: Evie Kennedy, 7th grader from Nashville, wrote to Virginia Sorenson about Miracles on Maple Hill

Level III (Grades 9-12)

  • 1st place: Ayesha Usmani, 11th grader from Memphis, wrote to Amy Tan about The Joy Luck Club
  • 2nd place: Elizabeth Belz, 11th grader from Memphis, wrote to Paul Laurence Dunbar about We Wear the Mask
  • 3rd place: Anjali Mariama Sood, 12th grader from Jackson, wrote to Kate Chopin about The Awakening

The winners are outstanding, and those who placed 1st in Tennessee will go on to enter the national-level contest, which boasts such prizes as $500 Target gift cards and $10,000 community grants for the winning students' schools or local libraries.

Many writers, teachers, librarians, and scholars volunteered their time to help read and narrow down all of the entries to finalists and ultimately three winners each at three different levels. The 2008 Letters About Literature contest judges are:

Level I (Grades 4-6) —
Dr. Marilyn Kallet, Professor for the Department of English at UTK, and award-winning poet, Knoxville
Helen Hemphill, award-winning children's writer, Nashville
Ann Andrews, Children's Collection Librarian, Memphis Public Library, Memphis
Level II (Grades 7-8) —
Dr. Barbara A. Wofford, Professor for the Teacher Preparation Academy at UTC, Chattanooga
Kate Stephenson, Partner, Trauger & Tuke Law Firm, Nashville
Karen Purdy, Medical Doctor and lover of literature, Memphis
Level III (Grades 9-12) —
Fred Sauceman, Executive Assistant to the President for University Relations at ETSU, Johnson City
Blas Falconer, Assistant Professor of English at APSU and poet, Clarksville
Ken Hall, Director of Marketing at Shapiro & Company Architects, Inc. and non-profit marketing consultant, Memphis

Contact

For more information contact Emily Masters at emily@humanitiestennessee.org or 615-770-0006, ext. 15.

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