Decorah Middle School students win honors in Des Moines

(Left to right): 7th grader Kaia Neal, award-winning Iowa author Claudia McGehee and 7th grader Emma Brauer

Decorah Middle School seventh graders Kaia Neal and Emma Brauer have won top honors in the "Letters About Literature" national writing competition sponsored by the Library of Congress and the Iowa Center for the Book.

Both students have been recognized for their letters written to an author about a book that has changed their view of themselves or their world.

Neal's letter to author Jerry Spinelli about his book "Stargirl" was chosen as the second place winner.  Brauer's letter to Shel Silverstein about his book "The Giving Tree" was recognized as one of the top six in Iowa.

Students in Decorah Middle School's advanced reading classes wrote letters–along with 1,865 other Iowa students–for the competition. Nationally, students in grades 4-12 wrote 49,000 letters, which were first judged by librarians and teachers at the Library of Congress. Of those, 163 passed the first round of review and were sent back to Iowa for further judging.

Ten other DMS student letters were recognized for excellence: five were named finalists--Cassie Wyatt, Kendra Bigler, Leila Johnson, Morgan Brauer and Noah Tapscott--and five were named semi-finalists--Emma Johnson, Sofie Grouws, Noah Lovelace, Tate Schissel and Anja Madsen.

Winning student letters can be read at www.iowacenterforthebook.org.