Creative writing competition winner 2020

India Betts won the creative writing competition last year. India also raised over $1,000 for the MS Readathon. Here is her winning story.

One day a time traveler named Joan of Books, traveled from 146 BC to the year 2019. Joan travelled because there was a case of a book thief and a very bad thief at that. Joan was very disappointed that the thief was stopping kids, from all around the world from reading books and nobody knew who it was. But that was about to change because Joan was on her way to London, where the biggest library in the whole world was located, to help.

One day there was a girl called Rose alone in the history section of the library. Rose was twelve years old and spent most of her time in the history section, as she loved history. While she was there she heard big winds and suddenly silver glitter fell all over her. She soon opened her eyes and saw a British warrior queen. She built up her courage to ask the warrior who she was. The warrior queen said my name is “Joan of Books and I need your help”. “What do you need my help with Joan of Books?” said Rose. “I need your help to find out who the book thief is.” replied Joan. “What book thief?” asked Rose. “The London book thief that has been stealing from this library. Less and less kids have been reading books. Tonight we need to read 10 books and then hide them in the middle of the library.”

That night they stayed in the library and Joan of books used her knowledge to know how to catch him. They had set up a cage to trap the thief. As he went to steal 10 books, Joan of Books and Rose pulled a string and a huge cage came down trapping the thief inside. Joan of Books and Rose took his mask off and he was the Bookie Monster. Bookie Monster promised never to steal again.

India Betts, nine years old.