Westlake students' letters earn honors

A Lee Burneson Middle School seventh-grade student and two Dover Intermediate School students were recognized in their age groups in the state Library of Congress' Letters About Literature Contest.

At LBMS, Lillie Forbes' letter to Shelley Pearsall, author of "Crooked River," was chosen out of more than 1,200 entries. She was named to the Top 20 in the state.

At DIS, Anna Mancino won second place for her letter to "The Kissing Hand" author Audrey Penn, and Grace Sugaski was named an Honorable Finalist for her letter to "Bluestar's Prophecy" author Erin Hunter in Level I.

All three students will be honored at an awards ceremony on May 12 at the Cleveland Public Library.

Deb Schrembeck's and Sara Latkowski's LBMS language arts classes, and Donna Dieterich's DIS classes, participated in the reading and writing contest. Students are asked to read a book, poem or speech and write to the author (living or dead) about how the book affected them personally. Letters are judged on state and national levels.

There were more than 3,000 entries from Ohio, including 1,213 at the middle school level and 1,017 from grades 4-6. Nationally, about 8,000 letters make it to state-level judging.

Only first-place state winners advance to national competition. All of the state finalist letters will be forwarded to living authors in hopes of a personal reply. Tens of thousands of students from across the country enter the Letters About Literature contest each year.