Ezri Berggren of Augusta, a soon-to-be fourth grader at Ewalt Elementary School, was honored yesterday with a city library reception informing her that she had been awarded second place n the national Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest 2008.
Ezri’s “The Clown of the Orchestra” story and illustrations won first place in the Kansas contest and she was recognized in April for that achievement.
Ezri’s national prizes included a flat screen television, a portable DVD player, a set of books for herself.
Two other book sets will be awarded to Ewalt Elementary, and the Augusta Public Library.
This is the 14th annual Reading Rainbow Young Writers & Illustrators Contest which  encourages children to use their imagination to author and illustrate their own “book.”
Berggren was one of only Publication12 authors selected from more than 45,000 contest entrants nationwide.
For her original story, Berggren wrote and drew pictures for “The Clown of the Orchestra,” a tale of one little girl’s drive to learn everything she could about a musical instrument.
The contest is  conducted by the acclaimed PBS KIDS television children’s series Reading Rainbow.
The contest is public television’s longest running and most successful outreach effort.
KPTS (Channel 8 in Wichita) was one of 113 public television stations participating in this year’s contest.
It had support from Lattner Family Foundation, Cessna Aircraft Company, Boeing IDS-Wichita, Spirit AeroSystems, Bombardier Learjet, Westar Energy, Papa John’s Pizza of Wichita, Monart School of Art, South Central Kansas Library Systems and Kohl’s.
Contest entries from kindergarteners through third graders are first judged at the local level, with local winners advancing to the national competition.
Two rounds of national judging culminated in a final judging by a distinguished panel that included representatives of children’s television programming, educators, a literacy expert, a librarian and university professor.

 READING RAINBOW airs weekdays on most PBS stations, including KPTS at 5 p.m. on Fridays. Designed to encourage children to develop a love of reading and books, the series is now in its 25th season, making it the second-longest running PBS KIDS series still in production. The series has been honored with 26 Emmy Awards, including two in 2007 ― for “Outstanding Children’s Series” and “Outstanding Writing In A Children’s Series.”