A senior at Illiana Christian High School in Dyer won a statewide Letters About Literature competition held by the Indiana State Library Foundation.
Students across Indiana wrote letters to their favorite authors about how their books impacted the way they see themselves and the world. Loralee DeYoung wrote to author Markus Zusak about his book “The Book Thief.”
“The Book Thief” is a novel that focuses on a girl in Germany during World War II who steals books and learns to read, finding comfort in the hobby during a difficult time.
DeYoung said she wrote about the book due to the discussions of grief present in the novel. She said it helped her deal with a loss in her family at a young age.
“It was helpful to know other people were going through the same thing,” DeYoung said.
As first-place winner, she will have her letter printed in an anthology, receive a $100 prize and prize pack, as well as attend a writing workshop and award ceremony.
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Eight other students from Illiana finished in the top 24, and there were more finishers from Illiana than any other school in Indiana.
DeYoung was surprised to hear she won, as the competition began a few months ago and she had forgotten about it.
Her teacher, Jeff DeVries, was the one to tell her.
“She had a ‘deer in the headlights’ moment,” DeVries said.
The anthology will come out in the fall and DeYoung will have the chance to work with Margaret Peterson Haddix, a New York Times bestselling author who has written the books “Shadow Children” and “The Missing.”
DeVries said he was very proud of DeYoung and all his students who placed. He said he has been doing the competition in his advanced literature class for four years and this is the second time they have had a first place winner.
He said he heard there were more than a thousand entries, and although Illiana has done well before, he has never had this many students place.
DeYoung plans to continue writing after graduation. She hopes to major in language arts education and become an English teacher.
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