TALLAHASSEE, Fl. (WTXL) -- More that a million, that is how many books Leon County Elementary students read this school year. It was part of the Million Book Challenge made by superintendent Jackie Pons early during the school year.
Many kids in Leon County are already out for the summer! And it's been a long year full of hard-work and a lot of reading! Second grader Talia Duncan, along with 4th grader Javaughn Brown, and 5th grader Naomi Somerset, combined to read a total of 173 books this year during the challenge.
"I read 'I Funny'", said Brown. "It's about a disabled kid named Jamie. He enters in a contest called 'Planet's Funniest Kid."
Somerset described one of her favorites: "The Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library". "Some kids take an essay contest and then they get into a new library with new technology", explained Somerset. "And then they have a challenge to try and get out of it."
Now for three students to read over 150 books, that is a pretty big accomplishment. "I feel a little proud because if just us three read 150 books and Gilchrist has about a thousand students, so that's a lot of books," said Brown. "That's like fifty thousand", said Somerset. "There's a lot of schools in Leon County."
"I feel proud that we could all have done that", said Duncan. "I'm happy that we could've done it too."
Gilchrist elementary is also in for another reading project for the summer: the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge, which began May 4th and continues through September 4th.
To learn more, visit www.scholastic.com/summer.
