The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

Center For the Book

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

Letters About Literature

Read, Be Inspired, Write Back.

A reading and writing program for students in grades 4-12

Students in grades 4 through 12 in public or private schools or who are  home-schooled are invited to write a personal letter to an author from any genre, fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic, explaining how that author's work has affected the student's way of thinking about the world or themselves.

The top state winners will receive cash awards and will be invited to read their letters aloud at the Opening Ceremony of the Virginia Festival of the Book in March and will move on to the national competition.

The Virginia Foundation and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, in partnership with Target Stores and in cooperation with affiliate state centers for the book, produces Letters About Literature.

Who is eligible?
Any student in grades 4-12 enrolled in public or private schools or home schooled.

How many winners will there be?
At the state level, three letters will be selected as statewide winners, one at each level.  They are Level I (grades 4, 5 and 6); Level II (grades 7 and 8) and Level III (grades 9, 10, 11, and 12).  We often award Honorable Mentions.

What do the winners receive?
The three statewide winners will receive a cash award, a Target gift card, and will be invited to read the winning letter aloud at the Opening Ceremony of the Virginia Festival of the Book March 2009.  Those awarded Honorable Mention will receive a Certificate.  Six national winners each will receive additional prizes and a $10,000 grant for their school or community library.

Note to Teachers and Parents: Curriculum materials, lesson plans, blackline masters, assessment checklists, and teaching strategies are available by contacting lettersaboutlit@epix.net. Letters About Literature supports national standards for teaching language arts and reading as recommended by the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association.

A Teacher's Testimony

Dear Letters About Literature Folks,
I had to honor what's been a joyful experience in my classroom. I wasn't prepared for how ecstatic and widespread the response would be when, in mid-November, I asked my students to list some books that they remembered strongly from these periods in their lives: preschool-3rd grade; grades 4-5; and grades 6-7. Suddenly, even the most apathetic and the most jaded of my students had something to say, characters and titles to fling across the room: "Curious George! Do you remember Curious George?" and "What about the Berenstein Bears?" "How about Little bear?" and "Clifford is the coolest!" "No, Amelia Bedelia is cooler!" "I love Harold and his purple crayon! I had forgotten myself how much simple joy those books gave and the voices of my students gave that back to me.

Then they went on to more familiar territory. There was "Bridge to Terabithia made me cry!" and "I hated the ending of The Giver," and "I'll never forget Harry Potter or any of his friends, even if I live to be really old like, 50."

When I read Harry Maddox's [2004] national winning letter to Natalie Babbitt (from your website) about Tuck Everlasting, they fell silent, then: "That's really good!" and "Awesome!" "A fifth grader wrote that? Wow." They said, "Well, I don't know if a book changed my life... but maybe my thinking..." And they got down to the business of writing about why.

I'm glad to have had this opportunity for my kids and for myself as well. In a high-stakes-testing world, it was sheer pleasure to hear my students so joyful about the act of reading, and then so thoughtful about what books have given them. Thank you.

Susan Washko, Sutherland Middle School
Charlottesville, VA