LAL is a national reading promotion program of the Center for the Book  

Please access the pull-down menu to read the national winning letters as well as the national honor letters from the past year. State winners are listed under "state winners" on the menu. However, the national site doesn't publish their letters. To read them, please visit the specific state center of the book web page. You can find the URLs for those state centers under the CONTACT US button on the menu.

A Message from the

LAL National

Program Director 

WHAT CHILDREN WRITE TO AUTHORS

“You’ve got mail” is an understatement for me during the months of November and December. Each year, the  post office delivers white plastic mail bins by the dozens filled with correspondence from children across the country. I am not the person to whom they are writing, but I and my staff are the ones who read their very personal letters.

Dear Ben Mikaelsen,

A student pushed a ten-year-old boy off a school bus causing him to land facedown on the ground, “just to be funny.” The bus driver drove away after asking only halfheartedly if the boy was “okay.” Imagine this same boy shoved into the corner of the school building while three students held him down, twisting and pinching his skin....The principal dismissed the actions as “just boy’s horseplay.” The boy felt scared, hurt, and alone. I was that boy.

This opening paragraph to author Ben Mikaelsen was written by a middle school student in North Carolina. The letter is about the novel Petey. It is also about something else — bullying, yes, but also adult reaction to bullying incidents.

Letters About Literature invites children to write to an author whose work has somehow changed the child’s view of the world or self. We encourage our readerwriters to explore their personal response to the work and then to express that response in a creative, original way. Do not summarize or critique the book or short story or poem, we advise. Rather, write from the heart.

They do not disappoint.

As the LAL project director, I see what the state and national judges do not — the minimal letters as well as the exceptional ones; the struggling readers and writers as well as the polished ones. I see something else, as well — a tapestry of themes, woven from New England to the South, from the Midwest to the West. The dominant themes on all three competition levels — upper elementary, middle school, and high school — is dealing with peer pressure and bullying, discovering for the first time a sense of self-worth, war and  humankind’s inhumanity to others, and coping with loss, from death, disease, or just plain adolescent disappointment. Interestingly, not one book or one author is better than another for helping young people understand these complicated issues. For the boy who wrote to Ben Mikaelsen, Petey brought back painful memories but also insights — that he is older and stronger now, and that it takes guts to look “beyond ourselves" and see the world through the eyes of others.

For Lucas, a high school student, deliverance from drugs came after reading Jim Carroll’s The Basketball Diaries. For Paul, a middle school student in Colorado, Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, as recounted in The Spirit of St. Louis, helped him rise above depression.

When I finished the last page, I closed the book and I knew that I had changed. I had been there when you took off from a New York field. I had been in the cockpit as you endured the grueling flight across the Atlantic Ocean. I had been there when you landed in France. . . . And you had been there for me. When I was ready to crash and burn, you helped me escape the abyss and get back on my wings and in the air. Your flight kept me flying, and has kept me flying still. You have helped me live a life worth living.

Over the past two years alone, 100,000 young readers have entered this competition. Each year I am impressed by the depth of meaning children have gotten from the stories they read. We need not dumb down our literature.

If what we write and publish has meaning, our children will extend their arms and reach for our words. More importantly, they’ll hold on to them. Recent research suggests that personal reader responses and reflective writing, as evident in these letters, can indeed help to produce  successful readers. And successful readers are lifelong readers.

Books are not the only venue that allow children to relate to others or to suggest a way of coping with a troubling situation. Reading a book, however, is an investment of time and concentration. “I never thought I could read a book this big,” many tell us.  For those who make the investment, the result can be empowering for them and incredibly enlightening for us.

These letters are windows to understanding this young generation — what the children think about, hope for, and fear. Recognizing that the youngest among them are just nine and ten years old makes what they write all the more remarkable. I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy the national winning letters published here. Please know that each affiliate state Center for the Book awards prizes to the top essayists in its state. We simply do not have enough space to print all the letters from children who have expressed themselves so honestly and eloquently.

One hundred thousand letters. One hundred thousand children. If we do not listen, we risk too much.

Catherine Gourley, LAL Program Director

Center for the Book in the Library of Congress

 A few words from our judges . . .

It's not so easy to be

an LAL judge!

"It may sound cliche but it was hard picking who was the best.  I picked letters where the  writer's voice was fresh, snappy and unique.  . . . the ones that I loved made it all seem effortless.   Thanks for inviting me to take part - I'm truly honored and humbled.    There were a few letters in there that were much better than anything  I could have written myself."

Michael Buckley, author of The Sisters Grimm book series and a national judge, 2010

""What a pleasure it has been to read these letters, all of which testify to the power of literature to evoke strong responses (and admirable writing!) from the state winners!  That such fine letters were written by middle school students is a tribute not only to the writers but to professional writers who inspired them and the teachers who influenced their writing.  Narrowing the field posed a challenge."

--Dr. Terry Ley, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Auburn University, Level 2 national judge