24th Annual Letters About Literature Contest - Grades 4-12
What: Writing Contest Theme: "How did an author's work change your view of the world or yourself?" Who: Students Grades 4-12 Deadline: December 2, 2016 - Grades 9-12 January 9, 2017 - Grades 7 &8, Grades 4-6 Websites: Letters About Literature site , Guidelines (pdf), Teaching Guidelines (pdf) from Cathy Lancaster, Youth Services Librarian, LM As Nathaniel Hawthorne so elegantly wrote in The Scarlet Letter , "She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom." I read it in the ninth grade and while many in my class moaned and groaned, and quite frankly hated it, I was absorbed into the world of Salem, Massachusetts in 1642. Absorbed into the plight of Hester Prynne and her daughter Pearl. It was an awakening to examine how the world has, or has not, changed in our treatment of women in the centuries since. Now the details of the plot and much of the book itself have faded from my memory, b...