The Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature's second annual One Book Two Book festival was a tremendous success, bringing about 3,000 people to events in downtown Iowa City and elsewhere in the area to celebrate children's literature.

One of the key components of the festival was the celebration of student writing. One student selected by each elementary school in the Iowa City area read at our Once Upon a Time banquet on Friday, Jan. 11 at the Iowa City Sheraton. This inspirational event can be viewed at the City Channel 4 website.

In addition, City of Literature partners at Pearson read through and judged 900 essays submitted by students in grades K-8, who wrote to the prompt, "Once Upon a Time I Had the Most Amazing Dream." Pearson selected first- and second-place essays in each grade. Six of the nine first-place winners were filmed for the City of Literature's "On the Fly: Writers on Writing" video series. Those videos can be viewed at the City of Literature YouTube channel. A short compilation video can be seen below:

The writing from these 39 students can be read at the One Book Two Book web site. In addition, the winning essays, as well as all of the 900 submissions, are part of an exhibit that is now touring around the area. It's first stop is at the Iowa Children's Museum at Coral Ridge Mall.