The Word On The Street Blog

This year, we had the pleasure of featuring the extraordinary talent of Inspire Teen Reads on our new stage, the Youth Launchpad. Inspire Teen Reads is an initiative and annual event that aims to rekindle and foster the love of reading among teens. At The Word On The Street, young writers from across the GTA were given the opportunity to compete in a book pitch competition and present their work to a panel of professional judges including authors, publishers, editors, and more.  We asked Divya Santhanam, the co-organizer of Inspire Teen Reads, to reflect on the the day’s events.

Learn more about Inspire Teen Reads and find out how you can get involved.

The second annual Inspire Teen Reads took place on September 27^th 2015. Sixteen teens took over the Youth Launchpad to passionately argue for their favourite book. The bright, sunny day coupled with the beautiful view of the harbour set a positive tone for the event. From round one, it was clear that this year’s competition was not going to be an easy one.

Each contestant had meticulously prepared the pitches, rehearsed multiple times, and even brought props to help accentuate their pitch. It was clear that each teen genuinely cared about convincing the audience to read their book. Martine Duffy passionately spoke about how Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar helped her understand her own clinical depression; Alice Cheng supplemented her pitch on Wayson Choy’s Jade Peony with a banana; Eliza Wallace spoke about how Fifty-Seven Reasons Not to Have a Nuclear War by Marty Asher had been passed down generations in her family.

The judges were impressed by the quality and persuasiveness of each teen’s pitch. Samantha Swenson from Random House Canada, Patricia Ocampo from Simon & Schuster, and Hadley Dyer from Harper Collins Canada, were the first round’s judges. They admitted how tough it was to make a decision, and spent about forty minutes discussing the teens to send to the next round.

Tensions were high during the second round, as celebrity judges Kenneth Oppel, Greg Hollingshead, and Megan Crewe would decide the winner of the $500 prize. After careful deliberation, the judges declared Lauren Chang the winner. Lauren’s chosen book was Lolita, and she beautifully conveyed how it prodded her to question her own thoughts and beliefs, ultimately changing how she viewed the world.

All judges were impressed by the power of youth to communicate eloquently and passionately about books they cared deeply about. With many people in the festival stopping by to listen, the event provided a forum to discuss all kinds of literature. The importance of reading cannot be understated. Listening to the teens speak on September 27^th proved literature’s innate power to help us grow as individuals and enjoy the little moments in life.

Divya Santhanam is a first year student at Brown University studying Human Biology and English. She noticed that with high school came homework, social media, and extracurriculars leaving no time for teenagers to read for pleasure.  This propelled her to create the first Inspire Teen Reads hosted at the Toronto International Book Fair. Her favourite books include Asar Nafizi’s Reading Lolita In Tehran, Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns and of course Harry Potter! Outside of Inspire Teen Reads, Divya’s passions have led her to explore both the sciences and the arts- from serving as a research student at Sick Kids to winning several short story competitions. After a successful first year, Divya is more than thrilled to oversee Inspire Teen Reads’ second year at The Word on the Street.