Essay Contest

Amanda participated in the Kerman Library's Essay Contest (open to 5th and 6th graders) and Amanda won first place for the 5th grade! She won a $25 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble and will have her picture in the Kerman News. Pretty neat! We are really proud of her. In honor of Columbus Day, the essay was to be about discovering a new country.

Here is Amanda's winning essay, just as she wrote it:

My name is Crusty and my huge, brown ship's name is Cowabunga. My crew has five people, Skippy, Jack, Megamouth, Spot, and Fluffy. We were carrying fresh food, pure water, shimmery silk, shinny gold, dried seeds, lots of books, and energy drinks with us.
We had been voyaging for three long, hard years. We had been through five violent storms, and three vicious battles. In the storms we almost sank! In the battles we almost had to jump off our own vessle!
We finally spotted beutifful land! We couldn't resist, so instead of going in our rickety lifeboats we jumped overboard and swam instead. I named the land Dipperfish, because if you look at it from above, in a helicopter, it looks like a fish in a dipper. There was lots of fat blueberry buses, pokey cactus and tall cocanut trees. There was lots of juicy apples and oranges. There was also lots of big seagulls, little deer, and gray, fluffy koalas. We had lots of success. We pitched our canvas made tents and ate a big lunch. Then we went exploring to find out more about the island.
As we were exploring we heard movement in the bushes, we drew our shining swords. Then, we saw that they were just Dipperfishens. Before they could do anything else we gave them bright gold and shimmery silk. Then they gave us a bright yellow corn and scrumptious meat. We became great amigos. We would be nice to them, and they would help us nourish our land.
I made a government so that when I came back to this land it would still be in order. I made the cheif president. I made his son the governer. I made his other son the judge. The government was in order.
Now since I had made a good government I decided to leave. I told the Dipperfishens, and they were very somber. I told them I would be back with more food to plant. So we got ready to leave. Since we had swam to shore we had to send Jack to climb the heavy anchor and come back to shore in a rickety lifeboat. When we were finished packing we said our good-byes and left.