NORTH HAMPTON — Resident Max Sopher was chosen as a state semifinalist in the Letters About Literature program. The contest, sponsored by the Center for Book at the New Hampshire State Library in Concord, selected 25 letters from a pool of 220 submissions.
Judges working on behalf of the Library of Congress will award $100 to each first-place winner. State winners will advance to the national competition where they could win a $500 Target GiftCard and a $10,000 Letters About Literature Reading Promotion Grant for their community.
Max, who describes himself as just a normal 13-year-old who likes to tell stories, said he "Did it for the money."
Well, sort of.
"I saw the contest flier at North Hampton's Public Library," Max said. "It said that if your letter wins, your library gets the money."
The contest theme encouraged young readers to explore their personal response to a book and then express that response in a creative, original way.
At first, Max wasn't so sure he wanted to talk about or share his letter with the press. It is personal. Yet, in understanding what he wrote could in turn serve as inspiration to other people — not just kids — he relented.
"I'd written Christopher Paolini several years ago, and got a three-page response back," Max said. "He gave me advice on writing and everything. For this contest I wrote to J.K. Rowling."
Like Harry Potter, Max had been "scarred as babies." And, again like Harry Potter, Max felt self-consciousness and carried a sense of unfairness about their scars.
Harry's scar was a small one on his forehead. Max's is seven inches long and crosses his chest. Over his heart to be exact.
Max was born with a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot, requiring open-heart surgery when he was just five months old. There's a possibility Max may need another surgery in the future.
When Max's grandfather, who lives in Florida, read Max's letter he responded, "You made lemonade from lemons!"
It may be no coincidence that Max took first place nationally in the Middle School Exposition category for The Writing Conference, Inc., writing on the topic of "courage."
Last spring, Max won a national award for a personal narrative he submitted to the K12 Holdren's Heroes (home school curriculum) writing contest.
"He's been making up characters since he was 5 years old," said Michele Sopher, Max's mom. "These characters were either completely imaginary or inspired by a stuffed animal. He created lives and worlds for these characters that grew more complex as he got older."
"I just like to write from my own observations," Max said. "Things I see or feel myself or in others. My own dog was the inspiration for a recent story."
The comic strip-drawing, basketball/guitar/violin-playing teen isn't waiting around to hear this March if he's a finalist in the Letters About Literature contest, though. He's busy preparing materials to enter a contest sponsored by The Mark Twain Young Authors Workshop and polishing a novel to submit to the Scholastic Writing Awards.
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