Enter Your Students in the StoryTubes National Contest
By Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 4/7/2008
Librarians: take a well-deserved break, and let the kids do the booktalking for a change. Both they and your school library stand to benefit—big time.
The reason is the StoryTubes National Contest, a library-sponsored competition where students in grades one to six are invited to make a "booktalk" video of up to two minutes in length about their favorite book, post the video on YouTube.com, and submit the link to the StoryTubes Web site.
The contest is already underway and judging starts in May. Each week that month, some lucky and creative video maker will be named winner of $500 worth of books for his own collection and $1,000 worth of books for his school, school library, or (for home-schooled children) designated organization.
The competition offers four categories: "Hair-raising tales," "From or For the Heart," "Of Heroes and Heroines," and "Facts, Fads, and Phenoms."
Students who enter are asked not to use their last name in their videos. Judging will be on the basis of creativity, content, and performance.
Librarians and teachers can find posters and flyers about the contest online, and contest applications and rules are also available online.
Sponsors include Simon & Schuster, Scholastic, Eaglement Press, DK Publishing, Charlesbridge Publishing, and Shenanigan Books. Five partner libraries representing each part of the country are also involved.
