Ellensburg teen wins library video contest

Will she end up being the next Steven Spielberg or Kathryn Bigelow? Hard to say, but 16-year-old Serah Manning already has a nice accomplishment under her director’s belt. Manning, a homeschooled 10th-grader from Ellensburg, is the director and creator for the winning video in this year’s Washington Teen Video Challenge. The Washington State Library helped conduct the contest in our state. Go here to view the video, entitled “Reading: The Ultimate Boredom Buster.” The actors in the video are Grace Pearsons, Miranda Sherrell and Sierra Cook. The four teens won honors for the best video in the state and were awarded $275 in prize money. Manning (right), who is a volunteer at the Ellensburg Public Library, learned about the contest through her boss, Josephine Yaba Camarillo, Children’s and Young Adult Librarian at the library.

Manning said:

“I went onto the website to research and look at the past winners for reference. I watched a few of the videos and thought, ‘Why are most of these so serious?’ Of course the theme was ‘own the night’, but still. I wanted to enrich the program with another genre, comedy! I like laughing and I wanted to make something that would make other people laugh too. I decided to give the contest a shot: If I didn't win, no big deal, if I won, huzzah!”

Go here to read the Ellensburg Daily Record’s story on the winning video team. The video contest and the statewide and national reading promotions are part of the nonprofit The Collaborative Summer Library Program, a consortium of states working to provide summer reading program materials for children, teens and adults at the lowest cost possible for public libraries, Teens across the country are invited to create a 30-to-90-second public service announcement video that shows how reading and libraries can be a fun and important part of summertime for teens.