ANGOLA — Royal horses, a purple cat, a magical hummingbird and dolphins; welcome to Lydia Wilhelm’s world.
The third grader from Angola was recently named one of six winners for the 2023 PBS Kids Writers Contest.
Having won the kindergarten age division in 2020 and submitting in both 2021 and 2022, her latest work, “The Mystery of the Missing Bird Feeder,” adds to a growing list for the award-winning author and illustrator.
As a recipient of first place, Lydia gets the chance to share her story beyond the page. The author will read her story and watch as it’s streamed on PBS 39 Fort Wayne and pbsfortwayne.org.
In addition to the video, during Wednesday’s “Winners Celebration,” Lydia will be presented with a special certificate, prize package and have her photo taken to show on-air and online.
Similar to the previous three years, her story focused on a central theme. For 2023’s contest, the characters and plot revolved around giving people a second chance. Lydia used this idea and birds to illustrate the lesson.
A mystery had struck the nest and the group of birds needed to solve it quickly: their bird feeder had gone missing. The only lead they had was the report of a glimpse of something gray and furry.
“Somebody says they saw this gray, furry thing trying to eat their bird eggs, but they didn’t know what that gray, furry thing was then. And then this magical bird appears, named Emerald, and she helps them and she tells them that their problem was just a cat,” Lydia said.
An eagle, a laughing dove, a crow, a bluejay and a skylark are the main characters looking to solve the mystery. Emerald the hummingbird helps them with her magical powers.
“She (Emerald) brings back the cat and it’s a purple cat, not a gray one and she tells them, ‘I turned this gray kitty into a purple vegetarian.’ They kind of have a little argument about if they can trust the cat and so at the end they’re friends with the cat and they’re all eating all together,” Lydia said.
The contest requires five or more illustrations and that being one of her favorite parts of the story process, Lydia submitted six.
She’s remained dedicated to the craft of storytelling in various ways. All her characters are intentional and thought out before they reach the final page. A long list of different bird types is among the handful of nearly a month’s worth of drafts. While practicing drawing each bird, she took into consideration their shapes, unique features and colors.
“I thought of ways of how the hummingbird would fit (in the story) and how the hummingbird would fit is because it was a magical bird and its beak kind of looked like a wand,” Lydia said.
Animals have been central to the young author’s stories. In years past, her plots have followed horses and dolphins learning valuable lessons such as kindness.
Having entered this contest for the past three years, Lydia is slowly becoming a pro.
“First year and second year she dictated and I wrote, they’re (PBS Fort Wayne) very loose on their rules like that which is fantastic because it’s all ages and abilities, but this year as she was copying it down, she would say, ‘mom, I don’t think this is the right word,’ and we’d have to go find a synonym,” said Cheryl Wilhelm, Lydia’s mother.
During her editing and revising process, Lydia set a personal challenge for herself.
“One thing I worked on this year was not saying ‘said’ as many times in my story, but I looked back to my first year and thought, ‘wow I used ‘said’ way too many times compared to this year,” Lydia said.
Although this is the first year the contest was opened to fourth and fifth graders, Lydia, Cheryl and father Travis Wilhelm are waiting to see what the future holds for the young author.
A video of Lydia reading her story will be streamable within this year on pbsfortwayne.org.