![\"(l](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/web-IMG_5171.jpg\")
<\/a>Their essays ranged from 10 sentences to three pages. Most were typed, some written in pencil, and others seemingly written and re-written. A scattering of students read their work as if dashed off immediately after the book was finished.<\/p>\n
Judges Denise Carabet, Luis Monteagudo, Ron Powell and Peter Rowe, all professional writers and avid readers, paid little attention to any of this or where the writer went to school. The judges read the fourth, eighth and 10th grade essays, and were impressed by the writers\u2019 creativity, expression and why their one book was important to them.<\/p>\n
Fourth-grader Abbie Wauson got the nod for her discussion of civil war and death in \u201cThe Lost Boys of Sudan\u201d and her sense of fear and dread when her father was deployed to Afghanistan. First place eighth-grader Anyah St. Pierre wrote of Jack London\u2019s classic \u201cWhite Fang,\u201d a powerful story of \u201can animal that is part wolf and part dog, and how his personality is altered by his surroundings \u2026 and multiple cruel owners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Repeat winner, 10th-grader Gabriela Ashnafi, chose \u201cThe Samurai Garden,\u201d a story of a Chinese man recovering from tuberculosis in Japan who learns his first impressions of people and places are often very wrong.<\/p>\n
The over 80 spectators, teachers and administrators would also remember two second-place finishers. Fourth-grader Binta Hidra wrote of \u201cFour Feet, Two Sandals,\u201d the story of two girls who meet and become friends in a Pakistani refugee camp driven there by a raging war in neighboring Afghanistan. Hidra wrote, \u201cI would save this book because the two girls had war in their country and in my country Gambia, there were soldiers with guns. \u2026 I didn\u2019t know if my family and I would make it.\u201d She escaped, but Hidra also wrote of sadness for when she came to America: \u201cI left without my little brother.\u201d Hidra finished reading her essay and was prompted by her teacher to tell if her brother emigrated. He was with us in the back of the St. Didacus meeting hall.<\/p>\n
Fourth-grader Kyle Wyborney also chose \u201cFour Feet, Two Sandals,\u201d because of the friendship between the two refugee girls. Wyborney has a close friend, Lance, and they\u2019ve \u201cknown each other for a long time,\u201d he said. For, Wyborney writes, \u201can important thing you should know about Lance and me is that we have the same disability called arthrogryposis. \u2026 No other child my age in San Diego has arthrogryposis.\u201d Wyborney was very sad when Lance moved to Rhode Island, because he \u201cwouldn\u2019t get to share and talk with him about what my disability was like.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Friends of the Library presented all writers with handcrafted certificates. First-, second- and third-place winners from each school received $25 Barnes & Noble gift certificates. Essays in hand, Wauson, St. Pierre and Ashnafi will travel to Balboa Park on May 2 at 6 p.m. to compete for first place in San Diego County. The three could win laptop computers and $500 if chosen to have written the best essay.<\/p>\n
No matter what happens, all the Uptown writers are winners to us. May 2 needs to be a great night to beat our magical one March 21.<\/p>\n
\u2014Dale Larabee es un residente de Kensington desde hace 40 a\u00f1os, que escribe ocasionalmente para peri\u00f3dicos locales.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Dale Larabee | SDUN Guest Columnist San Diego is a wonderfully diverse city. The City Library Essay Contest winners proved so March 21 at St. Didacus Parish School. One hundred twelve students from Adams, Franklin, Normal Heights, Our Lady of Peace and St. Didacus schools wrote essays on what one book deserved saving, if […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1368,"featured_media":246024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Emotions run high at library essay awards March 21","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1368"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}