Fourth graders Alexandra and Siobhan recently brought home first and second place, respectively, in the fiction category of the Gladwyne Library League's 46th Annual Junior Author Contest.
Alexandra, now a three-year veteran to the competition, entered Dragon Egg, which tells the story of Luna, a girl living in a town called DragonCrest. Born to a family of supervillains, Luna wakes up one morning with superpowers, which happens to coincide with the day she obtains a dragon egg. Her creature hatches as a phoenix and reveals the existence of her sister’s twin sister, prompting Luna to embark on an epic adventure to save her relative — an undertaking with a surprising outcome.
“Whenever I watch movies, I always find myself rooting for the villains because the villains never win,” Alexandra says. “So I just wanted to do something different.”
Siobhan’s debut entry for the Junior Author Contest, Spy Girls, follows Anna (inspired by third-grade teacher Ms. Anna Tobia), her sister, and her parents — the best agents that The International Police have — on a quest to thwart the planned theft of a golden tea set in Egypt. This humorous tale includes undercover aliases and gear, a curious riddle that the family puts their collective minds to work at solving and, of course, a pyramid.
“Since I was in second grade, I was always obsessed over the idea of writing spy mysteries,” she says. Her love of writing, combined with interests in Egypt and the concept of a stolen tea set, inspired the creation of Spy Girls.
Congratulations to Alexandra and Siobhan!