The jury has decided: Pia Hoebbel is the best reader in the Birkenfeld district. She is therefore one of the 555 best readers in Germany who will now go on to compete at district level.
The district competition of the 65th German Book Trade Reading Competition was organized by the Idar-Oberstein Youth Welfare Office and the Schulz-Ebrecht bookshop. It was held in the Idar-Oberstein municipal library. Idar-Oberstein singer-songwriter Samy Wayne provided the musical accompaniment to the event. She entertained the audience with her own compositions and cover versions.
In the competition, the eight school winners from the district were able to put their reading talent to the test and went head-to-head. The jury - consisting of Sandra Ley (Idar-Oberstein City Library), Annegret Schoch (formerly of Göttschied Primary School), Kerstin Hub (Niederbrombach Primary School), Sven Kritz (Carl Schmidt bookshop), Jörg Staiber (Nahe Authors' Group) and Ingrid Raagaard (Nahe-Zeitung) - had a very tough time and sent four participants into the play-off. All of them had to read the foreign text "Das Geheimnis von Darkmoor Hall" by author Nina Scheweling.
Pia Hoebbel from Gymnasium Birkenfeld finally emerged as the winner from the play-off. Her reading performance - consisting of reading technique, interpretation and selection of text passages from the book "Die drei !!! - Geheimnis im Spukhotel" by Maja von Vogel - convinced the jury. As the district winner, she will now represent the district of Birkenfeld in the district competition in Trier.
Around 6,600 schoolchildren from year 6 across Germany take part in the regional decisions in the city and district reading competition. The more than 600 regional competitions are organized by bookshops, libraries, schools and other cultural institutions. All participating children receive a certificate and the book "Agnes and the Dream Key" by Tuutikki Tolonen. The winner of the district competition can go on to the subsequent regional competition. The stages lead from the school competitions via city/district, district and state level to the national final with the 16 state winners in Berlin at rbb.
The competition aims to spread enthusiasm for books to the public, strengthen children's reading skills and thus help them to broaden their horizons, understand social changes and develop an openness to new things. The reading competition is organized by the Book Culture and Reading Promotion Foundation of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association and is under the patronage of the Federal President. The Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth sponsors the reading competition. The Education and Social Foundation of the Sparda-Bank Baden-Württemberg, the Sparda-Bank Hessen, the Gewinn-Sparverein der Sparda-Bank München e. V. and the Sparda Bank Hamburg support the decisions at regional level. The media partner is rbb.