1st Place Winner
5 to 8 Year Old Group
Cathryn (Cati), Age 7
What is the title of your favorite book, and what is it about?
My favorite book us The Last of the Grate Wangdoddle by Julie Andrews
I like this book because it has magical things in the book. It's about too brothers and one sister and a perfessor who are looking for a place called Wangdoddle land. At the end the perfessor and the children finally get see to the Wangdoddle. The Wangdoddle asked the prefesor to make another Wangdoddle and the prefesor said yes. It took a few hours to make the Wangdoddle. And at the end the Wangdoddles live happily ever after.
2nd Place Winner
5 to 8 Year Old Group
Portia, Age 8
What is the title of your favorite book, and what is it about?
The Talented Clementine
Written by Sara Penny Packer and Illustrated by Marla Frazee
The Talented Clementine is about a girl named Clementine. In her classroom, they are having a talent show to raise money for a big spring trip. Clementine doesn’t think she has any talents to share. Clementine has a friend named Margaret and Margaret has hundreds of talents and Clementine doesn’t think she has any.
One day, she goes over to Margaret’s house, and she asks Margaret if she can borrow one of her talents. Margaret tries to find a talent for her, but ends up counting everything out. Finally, they get to the letter T – T is for tap dancing, says Margaret. Margaret has an extra pair of tap shoes, but they are way too small for Clementine. Clementine then puts bottle caps on her sneakers with glue. She goes over to Margaret’s house to tap dance with her. Margaret does all the steps perfectly, but Clementine slips and slides when she tries!
Then Clementine gets the idea of putting her brother on a leash and doing an act with him, but her father does not let her take her brother on the leash she borrowed from a neighbor. So Clementine has to go to the show without her brother.
When she gets to the show, she tells the person in charge that she does not have any talents. She sits and watches the rest of the acts. While she watches the final rehearsal, she starts to notice the things that could go wrong. When show time comes, things do not end up running very smoothly, until Clementine steps in as stage manager and saves the day. Clementine discovers her talent – though not a talent that can be displayed on stage – and becomes the real star of the show!
1st Place Winner
9 to 12 Year Old Group
Nadia, Age 12
What is the most valuable thing your have learned in school and what made it valuable?
Going to school is such an important aspect of your life. You go to school not just to start a career, but also to guide you through life. You learn very interesting and valuable things. I am a seventh grader, and in my science class, we have learned about alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. It might be the most valuable thing I will ever learn.
Learning about cigarettes had the greatest affect on me. Ads about cigarettes are mainly targeted towards teenagers and I think you can guess why. Teenagers are guaranteed to be long term customers. Advertisers do not take care about the health of teenagers. All they care about is money. When teens are offered a cigarette, they usually think it would not hurt to try, and they can stop any time. Once they try, they get hooked on it and it becomes a brain disease - addiction. There are many reasons people in general start smoking, including peer pressure, curiosity, rebellion. Some people think that it also calms your nerves. However, it does the exact opposite. Nicotine is a powerful stimulant that increases heart rate and blood pressure, breaks down lung tissue and decreases lung capacity. That is why people have trouble breathing at times. Although you do not notice it, the lungs get filled with this gross green gunk. Once you get it, there is no way to get it out. You can develop lung cancer, which can lead to decaying body parts!!! As a matter of fact, there is a club devoted to people who lost their voices smoking and have to use special machines to talk! It is called the chatterbox club. If you care for your health, smoking is a terrible habit that needs to be broken if ever it is started.
"Drinking and Driving Can Kill a Friendship". That is what the poster in my science class says. Above that caption is a picture of two friends shaking hands - one hand a skeleton. I feel that this picture and caption really capture the outcome and effects of drinking alcohol. There are many short-term effects of alcohol: vision blurs, speech becomes unclear, and judgment is impaired. When this happens, you do not realize that you cannot drive safely. A sad fact is that every two minutes, a person in the United States is injured in the car crash related to alcohol. Long-term effects of drinking are even worse: "Alcohol abuse can cause the destruction of cells in the brain and liver, and can lead to addiction and emotional dependence" (California Life Science Textbook, 2008, Prentice Hall). The loss of brain cells can cause hallucinations and other mental problems. Your liver might not function properly, and without certain chemicals that your liver produces, your blood may not clot properly. All of this leads to ALCOHOLISM, which is a disease in which a person is both physically addicted and emotionally dependent on alcohol.
Drugs - meth, marijuana, inhalants and cocaine are only a few of the most commonly abused and known drugs. They can lead to different mental illnesses, damage to the lining of the nose, heart failure, stoke and liver damage. Many people do not even realize how bad these effects actually are. Just imagine the lining of your nose being ruined just because you used meth! Marijuana, also known as weed, grass, pot, herb boom, Mary Jane and chronic, is very common among teenagers. Can you guess the percentage of the 8th graders that have used marijuana in the last month? The answer is 6.5%!! I have read a true story about a teenager named Alby, who was using weed because he "wanted to belong". He first felt great, relaxed, as though his problems were disappearing... However, as you might have guessed, his problems became worse. He could not focus, his attention went from 100 to 0, he was depressed, and eventually dropped out of high school. Sadly, he kept smoking, because it was so addicting. He started dealing drugs, and was caught and sent to a maximum-security jail. Finally he got better, but could still feel some effects of the drugs. "Sometimes, i want to say things, and I can't get them out. I can't find the words", says Alby. "I never had that problem before I started smoking." Alby's memory problem will improve with time.
Learning about drugs, alcohol and smoking really made me look at my future in a different way. I know now how these things can alter my life in so many terrible ways. I hope my essay will be read not only by teenagers, but also adults, especially those who smoke or use alcohol. I hope everyone will realize that there can be only bad outcomes from it. Learning about drugs, alcohol and smoking was the most valuable thing I have learned in my life.
2nd Place Winner
9 to 12 Year Old Group
Leila, Age 9
What is the most valuable thing your have learned in school and what made it valuable?
The most important thing I learned in school is how saving the environment can make our world a better place!
Think about this - if we are careful about saving the world, then the water will not dry up. We will have plenty of water to drink. So would the animals. The ice would not melt, and polar bears would have a home. You may think that polar bears can harm you, but they won't if you let them live their lives in their homes. Another great reason we should save the environment is for trees. Without trees, we would not be able to breathe!!
But, if we do not take care of the Earth, so many things can go wrong. Also, we would have absolutely positively no animals. If we have no trees, plants, bushes and flowers, then many animals would not have homes, hiding places or food. If we have no water, then we would just die.
I hope you read this carefully. If you didn't, read it again. When I grow up, I do not want to live in a world without plants and animals, and I bet, you will not like that either!
