Tiffany Tan, a junior at Suffield High School, has been selected to be one of only two high school student judges from all of Connecticut to be a member of the prestigious Nutmeg Award Selection Committee.
Originally established in 1993, the Nutmeg Book Award is Connecticut’s literary award for Children and Young Adult literature. It is sponsored by the Connecticut Library Association and the Connecticut Association of School Librarians to encourage children in grades 2-12 to read quality literature and to choose their favorite book from a list of ten nominated titles put forth by each Selection Committee.
The selection committees for the upper elementary through high school categories are composed of teachers, librarians, and student representatives: two 6th and 7th graders serve on the Intermediate committee, two 8th and 9th graders on the Middle School committee, and two 10th and 11th graders serve on the High School committee. They are selected via an application process. The committees meet from January to November and members are expected to read up to 100 titles.
This writer enthusiastically recommended Tiffany, who is a founding member of Suffield High School’s Library Advisory Board, an avid and dedicated reader of any genre and is also an accomplished member of the Suffield High School Swim Team, and has remained in excellent academic standing throughout the challenges of school during COVID-19 times. Tiffany is also an active participant in several of the book clubs that are run at SHS, where she has discovered lots of great new books and made many wonderful friendships.
Tiffany will sit on the committee that selects the ten titles in the High School category for the state of Connecticut. She will attend many selection committee roundtable discussions to go over the close to 100 titles that judges are required to read. But Tiffany, who describes herself as a “pretty hardcore bookworm,” is up for the challenge and has already started on the first batch of required reads! Congratulations to Tiffany!