Redmond Patch Whiz Kid: McKenna Conlin, Literature Contest Winner

Name and age: McKenna Conlin, 12.

School and Neighborhood: A sixth-grader at in Kirkland, McKenna lives in Redmond.

Accomplishment: McKenna won the Letters About Literature Washington State Championsip for Level 1, grades 4 to 6. The contest encourages students from elementary, junior and senior high schools to write letters to their favorite authors, living or dead. McKenna wrote her letter to noted Northwest author Sherman Alexie about his book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian."

The national project is sponsored by The Center for the Book, Library of Congress and the Target Company. This is the sixth year Washington state has participated through the Washington State Library and the Office of the Secretary of State. McKenna’s letter plus the state winners from Level 2 (grades 7 to 8) and Level 3 (grades 9 to 12) will be entered in the national contest.

"I was actually a little surprised," McKenna said. "Two people in my class got honorable mentions."

The experience has really helped lift McKenna's sprits, says her mother, Kim Conlin. Earlier this year McKenna's father died, and her mom has been ill for the last few years, spending significant time in the hospital.

"Their dad was super involved in politics and the PTA, and now her getting to go down to Olympia and read the letter in person — he would have been so proud," Kim Conlin said.

McKenna and the other winners, Abby Bateman, a seventh-grader at Snoqualmie Middle School, and John Kang, an 11th-grader at Seattle’s Lakeside School, will read their letters at the awards ceremony May 6 in the Secretary of State Sam Reed’s office in Olympia.

McKenna will be ready. She’s practicing.

“My teacher had me read my letter out loud a few times in front of my class,” McKenna said.

Key to awesomeness: McKenna is in the Quest gifted program at Ben Franklin and loves school. She enjoys reading and usually reads fiction, historical fiction and sometimes fantasy books.

“Our teacher made writing the letter to an author a writing assignment,” McKenna said.

McKenna describes Sherman Alexie’s book as “amazing.”  She has aspirations to be either an author or study psychology. Her favorite subject at school is science. McKenna will be attending the ’s prestigious International Community School next year.

Here is McKenna's letter:

Dear Sherman Alexie,

Your book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, was inspiring to me.  Junior is the most realistic character I’ve ever read about because he does have flaws. He’s not perfect or unreal. This is what made me feel such a connection to your story.

When I was 8, my mom started getting sick, being in the hospital for days at a time. Sometimes, like Junior, when I think about it, it makes me wonder why this has to happen to her and why my family has to go through all the things attached to it. She’s been getting better, but it’s never really stopped. Whenever she’s there, I shut down, trying not to feel anything. I do this because I’m too afraid that if I don’t, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Nobody knows what’s really wrong. They can temporarily fix symptoms, but because doctors can only guess at what she has, nobody can cure her. The worst part is knowing that there isn’t anything I can do, nothing anybody can do, to help her. Junior helped me through this. Your book helped me through this.

Everybody feels different sometimes. And sometimes, I feel like nothing is right, like I’m the only person who ever feels like that, I feel alone. But when I read your book I knew that Junior could be real and that made me feel like maybe I wasn’t as alone as I had thought, because I knew how he felt. I knew that feeling because I know how it feels to have the world crash into a billion pieces. Like nothing could even compare to feeling the same. But Junior dealt with everything with humor.  He looked at everything that was good. Your book helped me see that everything is somebody’s perspective. That you can feel however you want. But you should always try to look at everything you have first, not what you don’t have. So you can see that maybe the world wasn’t so broken after all.

I feel like you wrote this book for people like me. Thank you, for reminding me how good a book can be. That every word can be amazing and important. That every word really does count.

From,

McKenna Conlin