Washington High students honored at Letters About Literature ceremony

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The West Virginia Center for the Book at the West Virginia Library Commission held the 2019 Letters About Literature awards ceremony at the state Culture Center on May 16.

A total of 166 West Virginia students were honored, including these from Washington High School in Charles Town, W.Va., for grades nine to 12:

• Alex Vance, honors

• Cecily Dyer, honorable mention

• Madisyn Eller, honorable mention

• Ava Kilmer, honorable mention

Letters About Literature is a national reading and writing program, supported locally by the State Library Commission and the West Virginia Center for the Book, an affiliate of the National Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Students in grades four to 12 divided by levels one to three, wrote letters to authors (living or dead) telling them how a book, poem or play by that author affected them.

This year, 629 students from West Virginia were among the more than 25,000 students nationwide who wrote Letters About Literature. National screeners selected 166 of the West Virginia entries for state-level judging, where judges, chosen by the West Virginia Center for the Book, determined the top letters in each competition level for the state. Entries for state-level judging were selected on how well they met the required criteria of audience, purpose, grammatical conventions and originality.

Honor recipients receive $50. Cash prizes are supplied by the West Virginia Humanities Council.

The Library of Congress will announce all national and national honor winners and awards, and will list all state-level winners at www.read.gov/letters.