Students from Great Falls, Choteau and Roundup captured top honors in this year’s Montana Letters About Literature writing contest. Judges selected the winning entries from more than 650 submissions in three separate age categories.

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, the program is sponsored at the state level by Humanities Montana and the Montana Center for the Book.

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. The program is sponsored at the state level by Humanities Montana and the Montana Center for the Book.

To enter, young readers wrote personal letters to authors explaining how their work changed their views of the world or themselves. Readers selected authors from any genre—from fiction or nonfiction to contemporary or classic. The program has three competition levels: upper elementary, middle school and secondary. The contest theme encourages young readers to explore their responses to a book and then express those responses in a creative, original way.

“We offer our congratulations to all our state winners,” said Humanities Montana Executive Director Mark Sherouse, “and indeed to all the more than 650 Montana students who entered this year’s Letters About Literature competition. And we offer our thanks as well to the many teachers, librarians and parents who encouraged them. Many Montana students are reading and writing well, and Letters About Literature is a wonderful opportunity for them to show what they can do.”

To enter, young readers wrote a personal letter to an author explaining how his or her work changed their view of the world or themselves. Readers selected authors from any genre—from fiction or nonfiction to contemporary or classic. The program has three competition levels: upper elementary, middle school and secondary. The contest theme encourages young readers to explore their responses to a book and then express those responses in a creative, original way.

Leah Bryan, who won first in the state’s high school division, wrote a letter to author Louisa May Alcott that said, in part: “An Old Fashioned Girl made me realize something very important about the world. Growing up is something that everyone has to experience even though it has its ups and downs—its times that are memorable for the glee that they brought and those memories that are too painful to even mention. However, through these trying years, I can remember something taught by your book—I’m not alone.”

The state winners in the three age categories are:

Level I, grades 4-6

• First Place, Meranie Vercio, Five Falls Christian School, Great Falls
• Second Place, Jack Streibich, Whitefish Middle School, Whitefish
• Third Place, Claire Watts, Whitefish Middle School, Whitefish

• First Place, Mariah Wearley, Choteau School, Choteau
• Second Place, Ashley Schumacher, Fair-Mont-Egan School, Kalispell
• Third Place, Henry Jorden, Choteau School, Choteau

• First Place, Leah Bryan, individual entry, Roundup
• Second Place, Geneva Kelly, individual entry, Bozeman
• Third Place (tie), Sarah Yerger, Billings West High School, Billings
• Third Place (tie), Katie Mehrens, Helena High School, Helena

Montana finalists each receive a cash prize, and state first-place winners all receive a $50 gift card to Target Stores. First-place winners also were entered in the national contest.

This year’s LAL state judges were Sharon Beehler, English professor at Montana State University-Bozeman; Penny Hughes-Briant, English professor at The University of Great Falls; Missoula author Dorothy Hinshaw Patent; and Kim Anderson, Humanities Montana associate director of programs.