Seven year-old Kiah McKenzie from Finsbury Park has won a national writing competition with her modern-day adaptation of Cinderella.
Kiahrella follows a young girl unable to go to a party because she “was watching YouTube and she was so interested in the slime making she forgot to do her chores”. Her sister then drives her to the party in a “smart car” and the traditional love story of Cindarella is replaced with a newly formed friendship with a girl called Shannon.
The competition, aimed at children between the ages 4-16, was launched by leading publishing company Pearson and encouraged children to write stories inspired by their favourite fairy tales with a modern twist.
More than 3,000 pupils from schools across the country entered the competition, with Kiah’s Kiahrella taking the top Key Stage 1 prize.
Kiah, who goes to Ambler Primary School, said: “When I found out I’d won, I felt extremely happy. I came up with the idea to write Kiahrella because I have a Cinderella book at home and it is one of my favourite stories. Me and my Nan thought it would be a good idea to write a bit about Cinderella and a bit about me.”
McKenzie’s work was chosen alongside 13 others to be published together in a book called My Twist on a Tale Winning Stories, which is being released today as part of World Book Day.
Katy Lewis, Head of English, Drama and Languages at Pearson said: “It was important to us that all entries included a personal twist and reflected the personalities, locations, heritages, interests and experiences of the authors. It has been fantastic to see the world from the perspectives of learners today and incredibly interesting to be able to identify the issues and areas that matter most to them.”
Empowered young people to create literary
Last year, Pearson added a range of diverse texts to the Edexcel GCSE Literature texts list in response to student and teacher feedback about the lack of diversity of British texts at Key Stage Four.
Lewis said: “This competition goes to show that diversity, inclusion and belonging matter to children and young people across the country. They matter in the literature we consume and the books, poetry and plays we put in front of them as well as in the literary content they are empowered to create.”
