Editor’s note: One of the prizes for participants in this summer’s Dream Big Summer Reading Program at Ilsley Public Library was the opportunity to work with the editor on a story for the Addison Independent. Seven-year-old Arianna Graham-Gurland, who just started second grade with Mrs. Doyle at Mary Hogan Elementary School in Middlebury, was the top reader in the Grade 1-3 category tallying 160 titles this past summer. Here she tells about some of the books she liked best.
 
By ARIANNA GRAHAM-GURLAND
My brother’s name is Berkeley and he is 4. My moms’ names are Suzanne and Amy.
The summer reading program really has been great. I like it a lot. It’s been a great program. I can’t think how to describe it. It’s been a great program.
Some of my favorite books that either my moms read to me, or I’ve read by myself, are:
•  “The Mysterious Benedict Society.” Mommy Suzie read this to me. It was scary, but it turned out all right. It was really interesting.
•  The “Magic Tree House” books. They were really interesting and I’ve learned a lot from them. They went back in time, and I never really knew that Camelot was a legendary place.
•  I also really liked the “Rainbow Fairy” books. They were neat.
I want to tell you about some of the things I learned that I didn’t know before I read the “Magic Tree House” books. In “Night of the New Magicians” I learned about Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Louis Pasteur and Gustave Eiffel.
In “The Mysterious Benedict Society” these four kids named Sticky Washington (he’s called Sticky as a nickname because he’s such a fast reader and everything he reads sticks in his head; his real name is George Washington, but he’s not the real George Washington!), Kate Wetherall, Reynie Muldoon and Constance Contraire were working for Mr. Benedict and they had to pass a lot of tests. Constance Contraire on this journey thought that she wasn’t going to help them because she was always whiny and tiny and she always had to ride on Kate’s back when they were running and she almost always said, “No” to things they asked. But then they realized after the journey was over that Mr. Benedict was planning a surprise birthday party for Constance that none of them knew about. He sent Constance to get a box from the cabinet that had candles in it, and they got a cake and they suddenly found out the reason Constance was so contrary was that she was only 2 years old!
These are just some of the things I wanted to tell you about.
Thank you to Sarah Lawton and the people who helped make the summer reading program possible, and the people who work at the Addison Independent.