Reading competition: Feemke Weidner winner in the Kassel district

The Corona pandemic also has an impact on the reading competition of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers and Booksellers Association), which has been promoting reading and the enjoyment of books for over 50 years. Sixth graders from secondary schools usually present their reading skills to a larger audience, whether as school or district winners or later in the competition as district winners. This year, however, due to contact restrictions, the reading entries must be uploaded as a video on a digital platform and judged on screen by the jury.

In the past weeks, the district winners were determined in this way in most of the federal states - in five states, the regional winners were allowed to participate directly in the state competition. For the Kassel district, nine girls and boys had chosen a passage from their favourite books, which they read aloud in a three-minute contribution, created a video of it and uploaded it to the secure digital platform on the website of the Börsenverein. From these nine entries, a jury of six has now selected two winners for further entry into the state competition in Hesse.

One of the two winners is Feemke Weidner from Edertal Comprehensive School. She had already convinced in the Waldeck-Frankenberg South district decision with an exciting passage from "Emma und das vergessene Buch" by Mechthild Gläser. For the district competition in Kassel, she had chosen a similarly rousing passage from "Die Duftapotheke" (The Scented Pharmacy) by Anna Ruhe, which she read very vividly and graphically, thus awakening the audience's desire to read the rest of the book. Feemke will now represent the Kassel district at the state competition in Hesse in May.