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2010-2011 LISTEN TO A LIFE CONTEST
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
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Winner of 11 national awards including an International Reading Association Children's Choice, a Teachers' Choice, and the Pinnacle Award for Best Gift Book! The Listen to a Life Contest theme of hopes and dreams across a lifetime is inspired by the bestseller Dream: A Tale of Wonder, Wisdom & Wishes by Susan V. Bosak. In a 40-page picture book format, Dream inspires all ages. 15 of the top illustrators in the world each offer a gorgeously illustrated page in a poetic, multilayered story about life's hopes and dreams. A great book to share in the classroom – from elementary to high school – Dream is also a popular gift book for children, teens, and adults. Find out more about Dream. |
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AND THE GRAND PRIZE WINNING TEAM IS... |
Chloe Rust, 10, and
her grandmother Nancy Judd Minor, 64
Chloe's grade 5 teacher, Karen Zurcher at Hallinan Elementary School in Lake Oswego, OR, has been entering students in the Legacy Project's Listen to a Life Contest for five years. Karen was thrilled to find out one of her students had been chosen as the Grand Prize winner this year. Students receive their contest essay assignment each year around the winter vacation. Karen says that students not only develop writing and organizational skills, but also make meaningful connections with grandparents and grandfriends. As she worked on her essay, Chloe says she learned a lot about her grandmother that she didn't know before. Chloe loves reading and writing – and hopes to have a career in writing someday.
Congratulations!
MAGICAL AND MISERABLE
Another Saturday night in 1957. My nana and her sister drag their alcoholic parents off barstools at the Golden Slipper Tavern and take them to the car. They are drunk, but the sisters know that even though their dad is angry now, he'll be much angrier if they aren't home by sundown to milk the cows. Always angry.
Despite this weekly ritual, Saturdays were special. This was the day they went into town. While their parents drank, Nana and her siblings met friends at the only theater, bought candy at the only drugstore, and borrowed books from the only library. Their magical day continued as they sat in the car outside the tavern, reading for hours and eating candy. Not until they had to fetch their drunken parents did the magical turn miserable. "And that is why," Nana tells me, "I vowed to never have alcohol until well into adulthood." She kept her vow and never drinks more than a sip of wine on special occasions. Nana has inspired me to do the same.
At seventeen, Nana told her dad she wanted to go to college. He yelled, "What the heck for? You're just gonna get married and have a buncha kids!" He gave her brothers each a cow to sell for college, but the girls got nothing. Still, Nana was determined to get an education. She paid for school by working long days in a shrimp factory and saving every penny. The poor farm girl became a beloved English teacher, and her love of books started inside that car parked outside the Golden Slipper Tavern.
300 words can never describe the hardships my Nana overcame. But as I sit here and ask her to describe her childhood in two words, she says: "magical and miserable."
Click here to read all the other winners
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