Hampden Meadows School student Kendal Bazerman was recently named a Level 1 winner for the state in the Letters About Literature contest.

Open to students in grades 4 through 12, Letters About Literature asks students to read a book, poem or speech and then write to its author (living or dead) to share how the book affected them personally. Letters are judged at the state level and the national level.

Hampden Meadows School also had a number of Level 1 semifinalists — fourth-graders Araminta "Minty" Gaitskell, Abigail Terantino and Dahlia Weller. 

Kendal read "Wonder" by R.J. Palacio, while Araminta read "The Honest Truth" by Dan Gemeinhart, Abigail read "Inside Out and Back Again" by Thanhha Lai, and Dahlia read "Out of My Mind" by Sharon M. Draper.

At the middle school, seventh-grader Ben Grijalva was named a Level 2 honorable mention (second place in the state), while Sydney Duncan, Venus Tian and Michael Cox were all named semifinalists. 

There were a total of 426 letters from students in Rhode Island that went to the Library of Congress as part of the contest.