"Watching the Storypalooza entries online was great fun however judging them was extremely difficult. All the entrants, from the youngest to the oldest, did a fantastic job of telling their stories. I wish we didn’t have to limit the awards, said Representative Ruth Munson.  "The Gail Borden Library must also be complimented for spearheading this effort. As YouTube and other internet sites become the mainstay for our youth, our library found a way to harness them to promote reading and community building. I was proud to join other community leaders in judging this contest and encourage those who have not yet seen the videos to logon today."

"We were tremendously pleased with the response to this community storytelling project," said Denise Raleigh, Gail Borden's director of communications.  "We will leave these videos posted as a great reading resource.  Over 13,000 votes were cast by people during the weeks of voting and thousands more have watched people getting excited about books and things in this library community.  Currently the international book publisher, Simon & Schuster, is directing people from their web site to our Storypalooza videos telling visitors that they are 'great reading suggestions for your kids.' I would like to especially thank Julia Langlois and Ellen Bachman, U-46 librarians from Coleman and Willard schools.  They were so instrumental in helping to create this wonderful reading resource."

All Storypalooza videos can be watched at http://www.gailborden.info/storypalooza.html.