The pupil artwork competition “My bookshelf story” received 1090 submissions.

On September 26 — the European Day of Languages — the Latvian Language Agency announced its annual artwork competition for pupils. This year’s topic was “My bookshelf story”.

We have received a very large number of submissions — 1,090 artworks — essays, poems, compositions, and drawings from Latvia and Latvian schools abroad: 658 — literary works, 432 — drawings. As only nine works could be submitted from each school, the actual number of children and young people participating in the competition was larger.

The literary works will be evaluated in 3 groups:

• 1-4th grade of classes — 197 works;
• 5-9th grade of classes — 347 works;
• 10-12th grade of classes — 114 works.

An evaluation commission has begun its work, comprised of:

• a literary critic, professor at the University of Latvia, author of textbooks, Ilze Stikāne;
• Secretary General of the Latvian National Commission for UNESCO, Baiba Moļņika;
• writer Valdis Rūmnieks;
• artist, author of drawings for the book series “Koko and Riko”, Linda Losina;
• Velga Līcīte-Meldere, project manager at the Latvian Language Agency.

The winners of the competition will be announced on our Mother’s Tongue Day — February 21, 2021.

We will continue to publish the submissions we receive, and the most interesting artworks will be included in this year’s book, which will be the fourteenth in the series.

We received last year’s book from the publishing house at the end of December, titled “Tell me your dream”, which features a compilation of artworks by 422 students. We will send free copies of this book to all co-authors and their teachers by mail in 2021.

Fragments of these pupils’ artworks were staged at the Radio Theater of Latvian Radio 1.

* The drawings of owls were done by Artūrs Teniss from Daugavpils, a pupil attending his 3rd grade at the 3rd Secondary School of Daugavpils.