2004 Winners!

Alabama Public Television received hundreds of books from children across the state this year for the Tenth Annual Reading Rainbow Young Writers & Illustrators Contest. The goal of the competition was to encourage children ages 6 to 9 to be creative and have fun doing it.

Entrants were required to write and illustrate their own work. Subject matter could be prose or poetry, fiction or non-fiction, and all illustrations were meant to complement and enhance the text. Each grade was judged separately. Parents were encouraged to help their children create a positive, joint learning experience, but the overall concepts and text had to be the child's.

A First Place and Second Place winner were selected for each grade level, K-3. The winners are:

Kindergarten:
First Place to Joshua Samuel Judkins of Auburn for Joshua’s Famous Picture
Second Place to Ariel Odom of Mobile for The Frog That Ate Olives

First Grade:
First Place to Michael Kathryn Cassity of Trinity for The Girl Who Cried Tooth
Second Place to Madison Underwood of Birmingham for Violin Lessons for Oslo

Second Grade:
First Place to Rachel Cohrs of Hoover for Look Around
Second Place to Nathaniel Craft of Hueytown for There’s A Snake In My Boot

Third Grade:
First Place to Hunter Wallace of Gadsden for Charlie the Trolley goes to the Circus
Second Place to Matthew Shapiro of Huntsville for The Chaotic Wizard

Each First Place winner will receive a $100 gift certificate from Books-A-Million, statewide sponsor of the contest. Honorable Mention winners will receive $50 gift certificates. Books-A-Million has sponsored the contest since it began ten years ago. All of the children who sent in books for the contest will receive special certificates of participation for their work signed by Reading Rainbow host, LeVar Burton.

The First Place winners' books have now progressed to the national level Reading Rainbow judging which will be done in June. National prizes include computers and Reading Rainbow book and DVD libraries for kids and their schools.

Reading Rainbow is the most-used television program in American schools. Winner of several Emmy Awards for Best Children's Television Program and Best Actor in a Children's Television program, Reading Rainbow airs every weekday at 12:00 noon on Alabama Public Television.

Alabama's Winning Tradition

In 2002, Haley Suzanne Stewart of Trinity, Alabama won the National First Place Grand Prize for Second Grade in the Eighth Annual Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Competition!

Haley's book, I Wished I Had a Sister was awarded First Place in the state back in April 2002, and national contest winners were announced in mid-June.

That was the third consecutive year that an Alabama student has won a national prize in the public television writing competition that
attracts more than 40,000 entries each year. Two Alabama girls received national second place prizes in 2000 for their respective grade levels, and another received a national second place prize in 2001. First and Second Place Prizes are awarded for competitors in four grade levels, Kindergarten - Third Grade, that are judged separately.