“Eleanor & Park” Wins 2015 Abraham Lincoln Award

Brigs' advisory won the Survivor: Island of the Abe’s Reading Promotion competition.

By Haley Staub, OHS Torch reporter

Rainbow Rowell’s novel “Eleanor & Park,” a story of young love at first sight, won the 2015 Illinois’ High School Reader’s Choice Award from a list of 21 other books.

Many other promising novels that were also sure to win awards were “Throne of Glass” by Sarah J. Maas, “The Selection” by Kiera Cass, and “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand.

“There seemed to be a Dystopian theme, but that changed this year,” said OHS Librarian Ms. Mullen about the pattern of books the awards were given to. These days, students tend to be drawn towards the stories of ruined and desolated worlds.

Olympia High School participates every year in these awards. The Abraham Lincoln High School Book Award is given to an author whose novel is voted Most Outstanding by participating students at high schools around Illinois.

Here at Olympia, every Abe form filled out and turned in earns points for the student’s advisory for the Survivor: Island of the Abe’s Reading Promotion. The advisory who wins gets rewarded with a pizza party.

This last year, Mr. Brigham’s advisory won with a total of 570 points. Top readers from that class were OHS juniors Marissa Percival and Samantha Pierce.

Rainbow Rowell’s novel won with a total of 266 votes. The books that are eligible must have specific criteria to be entered into the competition. Some of the standards are as follows: it must be first published in the past five years, currently printed in paperback, author must be alive, may not be a textbook of any kind, must be fiction, non-fiction, or poetry, and must be the first book in the series.

The new list for the 2016 Abraham Lincoln Award has been made and is currently up on their website. Some of the novels chosen for the list include: “Between Shades of Gray” by Ruta Sepetys, “The Darkest Minds” by Alexandra Bracken, and yet another novel by Rainbow Rowell: “Fangirl.”

The book who wins will receive the award and the winning advisory here at Olympia High School will win a pizza party! Students truly love the Lincoln Award.