And the winners of YAFF 2020 are…

The American Library in Paris is proud to be the organizer of the Young Authors Fiction Festival (YAFF), that aims to strengthen community among English-speakers in the Paris area through the art and craft of storytelling. The Festival is open to all students ages 5 to 18 in the greater Paris area who write in English.

 

This year YAFF received 630 entries, written by children from fifty schools and writing classes in and around Paris. We congratulate all who participated and entered their stories, despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Library thanks the 106 judges who volunteered their time and enthusiasm, reading the stories and selecting the winners, as well as the YAFF 2020 committee, who took care of all of the details along the way. The YAFF 2020 committee included volunteers Lucy McCloskey, Martha Simmons, and Katherine Youngblood, as well as Library staff members Kirsty McCulloch Reid, Celeste Rhoads, and Morgan Wurzburger. Special thanks to Library director Audrey Chapuis for her support and guidance,to the Library staff who supported YAFF,  and the parents and teachers who encouraged their children’s creative writing efforts. 

 

The festival culminated with two virtual celebration events on Friday 12 June, hosted by the Library’s YAFF Team. The celebrations included the announcement of the winners (listed below), comments from the judges, and readings of one of the finalists’ stories per grade.ver 200 people attended on Zoom, including the young author finalists, parents, teachers, and Library volunteers who judged for the festival. 

 

Two YAFF celebration booklets have been printed, with the full stories of the 1st – 5th place winners from kindergarten to 5th grades in the firstbooklet, and 6th– 12th grades in the second. The celebration booklets are available for 15€each and can be ordered on the Library’s website. Each finalist for YAFF 2020 has been awarded a certificate and a personalised bookmark with a comment from a judge who read their story. The Library thanks Louise Damiano, who beautifully designed the bookmarks as well as the certificates and booklet covers. 

 

The Library would also like to thank The British Council and The Roaming Schoolhouse, who both sponsored YAFF 2020.

 

Congratulations again to all the winners!

 

Kindergarten/GS & 1st Grade/CP Winners

1st Place: Red rock and blue rock you’re ugly by Gabriel Setton

2nd Place: The Scary Noise by Diane Le Barazer Cornut 

3rd Place: Annie the Owl and Quinn the Fox by Annalise Nanson

4th Place: The Missing Keys by Gaia Tanaka

5th Place: Fishy Swimming by Isha Malhotra

 

2nd Grade/CE1 Winners 

1st Place: Magical Alzo: The fight against the dark beast by Alberto Lopez

2nd Place: The Island of the Talking Food by Eytan Fazel Birnbaum

3rd Place: Detective Dinosaur by Xavier Daigneault

4th Place: The bad granddaughter who became nice by Jolene Leng

5th Place: The cat and the dog fall off the moon by Linda Dauphin

 

3rd Grade/CE2 Winners

1st Place:  Deep Sea by Emmet O’Sullivan

2nd Place:The Gwabolo’s by Eva Costes

3rd Place: The Extraordinary Adventure of Space Teddy and His Friends by Elise Bakouch

4th Place: Trouble in Kingdom by Aanya Kumar

5th Place: The Mystery of Hampton Court by Madeleine Tadie

 

4th Grade/CM1 Winners

1st Place: Cloud Wars by Coco Tanaka

2nd Place: The Mysterious Present by Quentin Rattanavan-Tsai

3rd Place: A Wolf’s Revenge by Josephine Laut

4th Place: The Life of a Presidential Suitcase by Sara Terrell

5th Place: The Pickle by Sophie Conjura

 

5th Grade/CM2 Winners

1st Place: The Lost Underwater City by Elena Guaraldo

2nd Place: Pedro by Juliette Windridge

3rd Place: 69 Alive by Eloïse Roosevelt-Vivaux

4th Place: Rob the Robot by Oskar Lewis

5th Place: Happiness and Doughnuts by Emmanuelle Tétard

 

6th Grade/6ème Winners 

1st Place: A Dream Come True by Maria Giulia Larcinese

2nd Place: The Mirror’s Reflection by Isabella Peterson

3rd Place: Will We Win? by Zoé Vaughan 

4th Place: Sky Singers by Aphra Walters

5th Place: The Escapee by Eleanor Croucher

 

7th Grade/5ème Winners

1st Place: The Christmas Adventure of George the Cat  by Jethro de la Hoyde

2nd Place: Josaheilm by Manhattan Walter

3rd Place: Peace Treaty by Charles Lucas

4th Place: Plucked by William Dungan

5th Place: Danger in the Forest by James Harding

 

8th Grade/4ème Winners

1st Place: A Love That Kills by Katharine Forde

2nd Place: The Shell by Indiana Bunn

3rd Place: Sing it Loud by Mahault Wattez Richard

4th Place: A Different Look at the World by Balthazar Turri

5th Place: Love Letters by Naomi Vaughan

 

9th Grade/3ème Winners

1st Place: Just another life by Tess Naquet

2nd Place: Spinning the Penny by Saachi Jain

3rd Place: The Ground by Clémence Cortese

4th Place: The Captain by Paul Gautier

5th Place: The Red King by Héloise Souny-Bihr

 

10th Grade/Seconde Winners

1st Place: C.C.O.D.R.by Lucy Farran

2nd Place: Nothing by John Argelès

3rd Place: A Thorn Amongst the Roses by Aurélie Coop

4th Place: Vicious Ultimatum by Alexis Schmidt

5th Place: The Magnet by Antoine Corbani

 

11th Grade/Première Winners

1st Place: Loop by Alice Benoit

2nd Place: The Manor of Reflections by Leila Yassawi-Pivato

3rd Place: I loved her immensely by Elizaveta Vinogradova

4th Place: Bamboo & Bristles by Juliette Shagrin

5th Place: Sunny with a Chance of Golf Balls by Ezra Richardson

 

12th Grade/Terminale Winners 

1st Place: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by Rafaela Uzan

2nd Place: The Coldest of Winters by Thomas Chopty

3rd Place: Like Mother, Like Daughter by Chiara Jurczak

4th Place: Photo by Kate Souami

5th Place: The Widow’s Cry by Phoebe Wilson

 

We are looking forward to YAFF 2021, and information will be available on the Library website in January. Until then…happy writing!