Twelve children have been selected as winners of the national PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest, an initiative designed to promote the advancement of children\u2019s reading skills through hands-on, active learning. The winning entries (first, second and third place from grades K-3) for the Contest, managed by local PBS member station WNED, were chosen from over thousands of submissions from 63 participating stations across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are proud of the accomplishments of these talented young writers and illustrators, and offer our thanks to all of the children that participated in this year\u2019s PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest,\u201d said Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President, Children\u2019s Media, PBS.\u00a0 \u201cThis annual event is one of the ways that PBS KIDS and our local stations help build children\u2019s creativity and improve literacy skills in a fun and engaging way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The national Contest winners will be awarded prizes, including tablets, e-readers and MP3 players for their outstanding stories.\u00a0 For the first time, stories could be digitally submitted to the Contest through a tool developed by new sponsor, StudentPublishing.com.\u00a0 Every participant that used the tool received a free animated digital book of their story that they can share with others, including parents who can purchase bound copies of the entry as a keepsake for years to come.\u00a0 As in years past, winning entries in each of the Contest categories will be featured on the site, PBSKIDS.org\/writerscontest, and visitors to the Contest site will continue to have the opportunity to create \u201cStory Mashups\u201d with winning stories.<\/p>\n
The 2012 national winners include:<\/p>\n
Kindergarten<\/strong><\/p>\n 1st – The Elephant Ballerina, by Hannah Grace Hammontree, Cohutta, GA \u2013 WTCI<\/p>\n 2nd – Abby the Talking Giraffe, by Ella Black, North Huntington, PA \u2013WQED<\/p>\n 3rd – Fury the Cat Has a Birthday Party, by Alex Beeman, Platte City, MO \u2013 KCPT<\/p>\n First Grade<\/strong><\/p>\n 1st – Jim\u2019s Crazy Bus Week, by Edward Krzemienski, Muncie, IN \u2013 WIPB<\/p>\n 2nd – Clark the Circus Pig, by Rain Vassey, Lincoln, DE \u2013 Independent entry<\/p>\n 3rd \u2013 Tacky Turkey\u2019s BIG Adventure!, by Ehren Collins, Lakewood, OH \u2013 WVIZ<\/p>\n 1st \u2013 Aly\u2019s Great Adventures, by Cheryl Kaye Marshall, Birmingham, AL \u2013 WBIQ<\/p>\n 2nd \u2013 Guinea Pigs Don\u2019t Go to School, by Ella Walker, Watertown, WI \u2013 WPNE<\/p>\n 3rd \u2013 How Jordan the Giraffe Learned to Love, by Finn LeSieur, Newport Beach, CA \u2013 PBS SoCal<\/p>\n Third Grade<\/strong><\/p>\n 1st \u2013 Scribbles For Fame, by Nikolai Ortiz, Corpus Christie, TX \u2013 KEDT<\/p>\n 2nd \u2013 The Mystery of the Attic Intruder, by Daniel Trimble, Pittsburgh, PA \u2013 WQED<\/p>\n 3rd \u2013 The Lake, by Elliott Feldman, Sturgeon Bay, WI \u2013 WPNE<\/p>\n PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest Judges<\/p>\n A diverse panel of prestigious judges, including leading children\u2019s authors, illustrators, producers and content experts, served as the final judges in this year\u2019s Contest. This year\u2019s judges include:<\/p>\n Tony DiTerlizzi – New York Times best-selling co-creator and illustrator of middle-grade series The Spiderwick Chronicles, which has sold millions of copies, been adapted into a feature film, and has been translated in over 30 countries.\u00a0 He has also created fanciful picture books such as Jimmy Zangwow\u2019s Out-of-this-World Moon Pie Adventure, the Adventure of Meno series (with his wife, Angela) and Caldecott Honor book, The Spider & The Fly.<\/p>\n Lisa Henson – Chief Executive Officer of The Jim Henson Company, Henson serves as an executive producer of Sid the Science Kid and Dinosaur Train, both currently airing daily on PBS KIDS, and Pajanimals, a musical puppet series airing daily on Sprout.<\/p>\n Jewel \u2013 Three-time Grammy Award nominated singer, songwriter and author, who recently released her second children\u2019s album, The Merry Goes \u2018Round, and will release a children\u2019s book this September titled That\u2019s What I\u2019d Do.<\/p>\n Kate Klimo \u2013 As Vice President and Publisher of the Random House\/Golden Books Group, she has been responsible for extending the Seuss brand into new formats including board and novelty books, and publishing non-fiction celebrations of Dr. Seuss\u2019s life and works. Klimo has nearly 30 years of experience at Random House; more than 15 of them spent working on All Things Seuss. She is also the production executive of The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That!<\/p>\n Jarrett Krosoczka \u2013 Two-time winner of the Third to Fourth Grade Book of the Year in the Children\u2019s Choice Book Awards, author and illustrator for sixteen published books \u2013 ten picture books and six graphic novels.\u00a0 He has seen his work recommended by national publications like Newsweek, The New York Times and USA Today. His Punk Farm and Lunch Lady series are also in development to be feature films.<\/p>\n Susan Meddaugh \u2013 Author and illustrator of Martha Speaks, the best-selling book series, as well as a creative producer of the award-winning PBS KIDS series of the same name.<\/p>\n Ozomatli \u2013 Grammy award-winning band, celebrated Los Angeles culture-mashers and U.S. State Department Cultural Ambassadors.<\/p>\n Mo Willems \u2013 Recipient of 3 Caldecott Honors, 2 Geisel Medals, 2 Carnegie Medals, 6 Emmys and a Geisel Honor. Having worked in children\u2019s books, animation, television, theater, and bubble gum card painting, his most recent book is Hooray for Amanda and Her Alligator, a portrait of the relationship between a girl and her stuffed alligator told in 6-1\/2 stories.\u00a0 Recent and upcoming non-bubble gum card projects include the New York Times bestseller Duckling Gets a Cookie!? and a new Elephant and Piggie book, Listen to My Trumpet!<\/p>\n The Weepies \u2013 Deb Talan and Steve Tannen began writing together the night they first met and soon formed The Weepies. The Indie duo has sold more than a million singles and half a million albums. Their simple and direct songwriting has sent them to the top of the folk charts in a dozen countries.<\/p>\n For more information on specific PBS KIDS GO! content supporting literacy, science, math and more, visit <\/span>PBS.org\/pressroom<\/span><\/a>, join their community online on <\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>, or visit <\/span>PBSKIDSGO.org<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twelve children have been selected as winners of the national PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest, an initiative designed to promote the advancement of children\u2019s reading skills through hands-on, active learning. The winning entries (first, second and third place from grades K-3) for the Contest, managed by local PBS member station WNED, were chosen from over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paSd8M-9f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/ranny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/ranny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/ranny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/ranny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/ranny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/ranny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/ranny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/ranny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/ranny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSecond Grade<\/strong><\/p>\n