Teens Win NJ Library Love Contests

When the New Jersey State Library (NJSL) asked teens to show them some love, more than 40 kids statewide did just that in the form of videos and comic strips. Two—Courtney Wu of Basking Ridge and Elena Ordille of Hammonton—took top prize in the “Why I love my library contest.” More than 17,000 voters chose the winners by visiting the NJSL web site and YouTube. Wu's 30-panel comic on the Bernardsville Public Library—drawn with simple stick figures—tells the story of a Reading Express train that takes people to a massive stadium, filled with trees loaded with hanging books (WuNJ.notlong).

Ordille's five-minute YouTube video on the Atlantic County Library shows one teenage girl trying to convince her friend that the library has lots of interesting books to offer. Each winner received an MP3 video player.