Britta’s book won a second-place award at the PBS Kids Writers & Illustrators contest
Every year, Leanne and Patrick Trim work with their daughters to create and illustrate books to enter the PBS Utah Writers & Illustrators contest.
This year, Britta Trim, the youngest of four, won a second-place award in the kindergarten level for her story, “Jelly Loves Helping Others.” She wrote and illustrated the six-page book entirely outside of school. She’ll be entering first grade in the upcoming year.
Britta’s book follows a jellyfish on the playground who then finds a stranded baby penguin, separated from its mom. Jelly, the jellyfish, helps the penguin find its mom, who had been hidden in a seaweed patch. After helping, Jelly returns to the playground.
“Jelly felt happy helping the baby penguin. It is good to help others!” Britta wrote. “Jelly loves you!”
Britta is “really into the ocean,” her mom said, which likely inspired her book idea—she discovered that love when her family went on vacation to the California coast over the winter. Leanne said creating the book was a long process: it took Britta and Leanne almost a month to perfect Britta’s idea and the story plot. From there, Britta wrote and illustrated one page per day.
“She came up with the story really fast,” Leanne said. “The kids will say their story out loud, and I’ll write what they’re saying. Then we’ll go through it together and make our edits, like, we should add this sentence here or take this out or add a detail here. Then we’ll divide up the story and figure out the good breaking points or something they’d want to draw a picture of for the pages.”
This was the first year Britta was able to submit a story to the contest—she’s seen her sisters do so in years past. Leanne said she always tries to make the experience fun for her daughters by talking through story ideas and taking them for at least one coffee shop workday.
As an award-winner, Britta will attend an award ceremony in August in Salt Lake City, and her book will be on display as a traveling PBS exhibit. She’ll also get to tour the PBS station.
“We read a ton together, and she’s learning how to read herself,” Leanne said. “She’s getting better every day.”
Britta chose a jellyfish as her main character because they’re jiggly, she said, and she thought the idea of having a jellyfish help other creatures would be nice. She’s written other books since then too, mostly about people or creatures having fun playing together.
“Britta is super sweet and easygoing,” Leanne said. “She likes to draw and write, obviously, and she’s just really caring.”
You can peruse other award winners at PBSUtah.org/kids.
