Letters About Literature is a national reading and writing promotion program for children grades 4-10, sponsored by Humanities Montana and the Montana Center for the Book, and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Each fall, we invite students to write to an author of their choosing, living or dead, whose book they have found especially meaningful. State and national winners are announced in the spring.

The next submissions deadline is January 11, 2013.

Seeley Lake Elementary sixth-grader Tristan Tudor has been named a National Honor award winner in the 2011 Letters About Literature contest. Only twelve students in the entire country win this award, out of more than 69,000 entrants. Tristan wrote a letter to Lisa Graff, author of Umbrella Summer. Read the award-winning letter here.

Each National Honor winner will receive a $100 Target GiftCard. Furthermore, each National Honor winner secures the right to nominate a community or school library to receive a $1,000 LAL Reading Promotion Grant. Tristan has nominated the Seeley Lake Elementary School Library.

Re. Letters About Literature...

"Your writing program...has taken on a value far greater than any single assignment. It facilitates a powerful reading/writing connection, it opens doors to many valuable conversations in our classroom about personal experience and the way we see the world."