NEW YORK — A Mid-South 5th grader will be among 45 students, ages 10-14, from across the country and around the world to join the award-winning Scholastic Kids Press program for the 2020-2021 school year.
Scholastic Kids Press announced Monday, Varun Kabra from Memphis will interview newsmakers from the community and share the perspectives of his peers on the 2020 U.S. presidential election and other issues that matter most to young people today.
- Varun likes robotics, coding, and origami.
- He is fluent in Hindi.
- In the future, he would like to be an engineer.
“I want to learn about new things and share my stories with people so that they can learn too,” said Varun.
Representing 21 U.S. states and more than 10 countries around the world, the 45 young journalists will write “news for kids, by kids,” as students have done throughout the program’s more than 20-year history.
As schools around the world experience learning disruptions due to the coronavirus pandemic, Scholastic Kids Press continues to help students everywhere stay engaged in current events, regardless of their learning environment.
Scholastic Kid Reporters gain valuable writing and critical-thinking skills through this unique journalism experience as they conduct research and interviews, and write news stories. Kid Reporter articles are published on the Scholastic Kids Press website, and in select issues of Scholastic Classroom Magazines, which reach 25 million students nationwide.
“Kids have experienced monumental changes in their lives this year, prompting questions about health, science, and racial justice,” said Suzanne McCabe, editor of Scholastic Kids Press. “By writing about issues that affect them and contextualizing the news for their peers, our Kid Reporters help keep themselves and our young readers informed. By asking tough questions, they also identify leaders in their communities who have solutions.”
Scholastic Kids Press has empowered kids to document historic events and interview a range of influential figures over the past two decades, including conservationist Jane Goodall, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, award-winning author Jason Reynolds, and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in addition to United States presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. During the 2019–2020 program year alone, Kid Reporters covered the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, climate strike rallies, and Black Lives Matter protests. They also shared eyewitness accounts of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on their communities, chronicling local responses to the deadly virus.
