Magnolia’s 7 year-old Evan Otte was at honored the?Seattle Public Library Breakfast of Champions yesterday.? The?event, held at the Space Needle, celebrated?27 winners? (one from each of Seattle’s?neighborhood libraries).? The Seattle Public Library hosts the Breakfast of Champions celebration to recognize the summer reading accomplishments of children throughout Seattle. Each year the Seattle Public Library sponsors a summer reading program for children ages birth to 12. The mission of this program is to prevent summer setback among Seattle?s children.? Our own Evan Otte was recognized as an outstanding reader by the City of Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, City Librarian Marcellus Turner and MC Dennis Bounds, from KING-5 News.? After congratulating several of the winners,?Mayor McGinn asked Evan what his favorite book was and Evan replied that it was “The Wheedle on the Needle” and the Mayor said, “you know, someone just gave me that book. I love that book too, because the mayor is the hero in the book.”
Each winner was allowed to bring three guests and they sat at a table with their local librarian.? Evan sat with Magnolia librarian, Jesten Ray.
After breakfast there were some short speeches. “Seattle Public Library has hosted a summer reading competition since 1919,” said Marcellus Turner, the city librarian, “and this year the city read more than 191,000 books, which could equal to 13 times the space needle.” ? Following the speeches,? Dennis Bounds invited each Breakfast of Champion winner come up?to be honored onstage, where they received? a Seattle Public Library t-shirt and a?giant cookie with their name written on it in frosting. Congrats to Evan and all of the kids recognized!
Special thanks to Kym Otte for heads up and the photos
It was so very disappointing that they awarded the grand prize only halfway through the summer reading program. Who does that?!