Reading Queen

Last week, my cousin Evy participated in a reading contest voor children in the highest classes of primary school. The National Reading Contest is organized in an effort to promote reading books. From every Dutch province (12 in total) the best of each province can participate in the National Contest in May 2011. My cousin through several preliminaries (one for her school, than one for her city) had made it to the provincial one. Last week, nine children (eight girls, one boy) from different schools in the Province of Flevoland (the province that is built on land reclaimed from the sea after WWII see yellow parts on map) participated in this preliminary. Only one would make it to the Finals.

During the preliminary, the children read for about 5 minutes to the audience from one of their favorite (children's) books. For every preliminary they have to choose a different book. Of course they prepare at home reading out loud (to family, friends, their stuffed animals), using the right voices for each protagonist in the story. My cousin, this time, read from her favorite book "Heksenbloed en Drakengoud" (Witch blood and Dragon gold) about the adventures of a girl whose mother is a dragon (she herself is a human being, like her father).

The audience consisted of family, teachers but mostly of the classmates of each of the participants. The classmates had prepared a yell and a huge banner for their participating classmate to encourage them. My cousin was the youngest participant with her 10 years (although she turns 11 in about two weeks). The oldest was 12 years old. The jury pays attention to the way the participant articulates, the way the children use their voice, but especially, because in the end that is what it is all about, whether the participants can capture the attention of the public ... and keep it.

I have to say that each participant did a great job in the latter part. It was completely silent every time one of the participants read a story from their books (and with certainly 150 children in the audience, that is quite a feat!). They sounded angry when the protagonist was angry, happy when happy, and sad when sad.

I was immensely impressed by how each child presented themselves and/or their book to the audience and then read their story.

My cousin, unfortunately, did not win. She did an amazing job though and was also interviewed for local television. Almost 11 years ... I was very impressed and still am. Fortunately for my cousin, as she has not finished primary school yet, she could participate again next year. I am definitely looking forward to attending then again! Well done, Evy!!

To see the news item (video in Dutch) click here

Have a great week!
Rose