WESTFIELD – Winners of the annual short story contest, sponsored by The Westfield Athenaeum, were invited to come and be celebrated at the Boys and Girls Library on Saturday afternoon. First place winners of the contest, which has been held for at least the last ten years according to Youth Services Librarian Jessica Blasko, received a certificate from the library, along with a $15 gift card. They were also treated to a cake in their honor.
“It was so fun reading all of them, to see the ideas that they had,” Blasko said. She said there were approximately 50 entries this year which were judged by library staff. Winning entries are bound together in a book, and kept at the library.
First place winners attending the celebration included home-schooled first grader Gianna Beluzo for her entry, “Nutty Goes Nuts About Reading,” Franklin Avenue fourth grader Alexander MacQueen Pooler for “How Aliens Came to Earth,” Paper Mill fifth grader William Halbert for “Creeper,” and Southwick Regional seventh grader Anastasia Antropova for “Lament of the Library Books.”
First place winners not present on Saturday included third grader Keatyn Alison Linnea Kane for “The Ghost in My House,” and twelfth grader Michael S. Navarro for “What is Beyond the Forest?”
“He’s done pretty well in other contests for poetry and short stories. He’s got a very vivid imagination,” said Lawrence Pooler about his son, Alexander.
William Halbert said his story “Creeper” is about a pumpkin and a cranberry slush machine, and Gianna said in “Nutty Goes Nuts About Reading,” Nutty is a squirrel.
Halbert and some of the other winners said right now they are busy preparing for the annual poetry contest, which is currently underway at the Athenaeum to celebrate April as National Poetry Month. Entries for both the Boys & Girls Poetry Contest and the Adult Poetry Contest are being accepted through April 30. Contest rules are available online at www.westath.org.
Antropova said her short story is about the library books on the shelves not getting read.
“I spend a lot of time at libraries in general,” Antropova said.
Her story, “Lament of the Library Books” is printed below.
“Lament of the Library Books”
By Anastasia Antropova, Grade 7, Southwick Regional
We are nothing more than heavy papers and the thread holding them together. Glossy plastic jackets that shield strong cardboard covers and stiff spines.
We stand in contrast to our solid wooden shelves. We lean against each other, our sisters and our brothers of a thousand colors. But even among others, even united by the waiting, we are all alone. All alone together.
We wait and we beckon to you, hoping, desperately hoping, that you’ll pick us up. And love us. Cherish us. Keep us in your heart, forever. But you so seldom do.
But still we wait for you. For the lonely girl, finding solace in our words. For the boy and his older brother, allowing us to cart them away on the next adventure. For the old women down the block, who lets us love her back.
We do not know what stories we contain. What terrifying mysteries or enchanting fairytales. We are unaware if we hold messages of courage, or of steady determination. We have no idea what pleasure we bring, or if we summon tears or laughter. We only know we wait, and that we long to be part of you. To help you the only way we can. But more often we are left. More often ignored. Forgotten. And we can not call out to remind you that we are here.
We wait here, but we can not stop the doubt that trickles in. We can not halt the whispers in the dark, the ones that tell us you will never come. We can not dispel the products of false hope, though we still brave to wish that we’ll be picked out from the stack as though you finally mean to see us. We still allow ourselves to feel the barest hints of contentment when you bring us home with the best intentions. But too soon we are put aside, dog-eared and unfinished. You tell us that this Is only temporary, a day at most. We rush to believe you, and all your good-natured promises. But that day turns into two, then three, then four. We still wait patiently, but we know that our chance is gone, another doorway closed. And we ache to realize that soon we’ll be just another ink-stained heart, chastised for daring to hope again. And we are not surprised when we are sent back, returned to the shelf to wait, and wait, and wait.
We know you are responsible. You condemn us to our loneliness, leave us to the dark and the quiet, the numbness of the cold. But we can not hand you the blame. We are not mad, just filled with the stony weight of resignation. We understand. We forgive. We will always wait for you.
We know we could wait forever, but we can not lose the ache. Without the half-remembered dream of love, without the fierce longing to be heard, without the wish of these things so strong we can nearly taste it, we are nothing. And so we still wait, perhaps in vain, for you.
