"You are a kind mother / Who feeds the needy / Who cares for the sick / Who protects the weak / People say, 'Thanks!'" Thus writes Kinsey Fong, age seven, in his poem You Are the Yangtze, which won a prize in his age group at the 2012 Hong Kong Young Writers Awards.
The annual competition invites young writers to submit their works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. And for budding artists, there is an art category, with the winning entry reproduced as the cover art for the anthology in which the shortlisted works are published.
I read through the anthologies from past years and was impressed that the works came from a wide range of genres written by boys and girls from local and international schools across Hong Kong and the mainland. Each year a theme is selected. Recent ones are New Tales of the Silk Road and New Tales of the Yangtze River.
More than 1,500 students from 150 schools have submitted entries this year for New Tales of the Great Wall. The winners will be announced on April 17.
I have not met any of the contributors, but my guess is that these writers like to read. It's just too difficult to cultivate quality writing without reading.