Grades 3 and 4 summer writing contest winners were congratulated by actors Bill Jones and Christine Kludjian at a ceremony at the Palisades Library.
The annual summer youth writing contest winners were announced at a ceremony at the Palisades Library on October 9. The contest, with the theme “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to . .. ” opened in June and closed on September 5. Submissions were judged on creativity, originality, effort, plot and theme.
The top three stories in each of the categories were read/acted by professional actors Bill Jones and Christine Kludjian. “Writers” are generally thrilled to hear their words come alive and Jones and Kludjian joked they’ve been reading the winning stories “about 40 years.”
The event was extremely entertaining, as Jones and Kludjian dramatized and found humorous moments in each story.
The top winners in the Jotters category (Grades 3 & 4) were first: Phoebe Hanelin, second Emma Kerdiles and third Clara Bowles.
Something Funny Happened On the Way to the Zoo
By PHOEBE HANELIN
Have you ever seen something that was lost and had to return it? Well I did and it was a crazy adventure.
I was so excited because we had tickets to go to the zoo! I was especially excited to see the Koala bears, because they are my favorite animal at the zoo.
The drive to the zoo is pretty long so it was kind of boring, until it wasn’t. When we were still a ways away we saw the most crazy thing- a koala bear! It was an escaped koala bear from the zoo and it was up in a tree!
We stopped at the side of the road to try to get it out of the tree. My dad started climbing the tree but couldn’t get to it. So then I tried and I reached the koala bear! I was struggling to pick it up though, so my sister had to come and help me.
Once we finally got the koala bear down, we had to put it in the car. My mom wasn’t thrilled to put a wild animal in the car, but we eventually convinced her. Our dog was with us though, and she wasn’t too crazy about it either. She kept barking at the koala, but eventually she stopped.
We were still a ways away from the zoo, so we had to make the most of having a koala in the car. It kept climbing everywhere and she bit my sister! It didn’t hurt much though, my sister said.
When we were so close to the zoo, my dad rolled down the car window. The koala bear jumped at the chance to escape the car. And when I say jumped, I mean jumped! The koala tried to jump out the window! We were lucky though, because my mom caught it right in time.
After that, we had to put it in the seatbelt so it couldn’t get out. When we finally got to the zoo, we had to carry the koala in. We found the trainer and gave the koala to her. She said she didn’t even know it was missing! But, when we were handing it to her, the koala jumped out of her arms and started to crawl away! But luckily, koala bears aren’t very fast, so it was easy to pick her up again. Then we followed the trainer to the exhibit and then gave the koala to her, and she put the koala back in her exhibit. Now I could enjoy visiting the koalas at the zoo!