For 16 years now, our Summer Reading Contest has been inviting teenagers around the world to tell us about the recent Times pieces that have gotten their attention, and explain why. Students can submit either written comments or 90-second video responses
This week, the second of our 10-week challenge, we received 849 submissions, and chose as our winning essay a piece by Alvin Su, a student from New Orleans.
Scroll down to read his work, and to find a list of runners-up and honorable mentions. As you go, note the variety of topics that caught the eyes of these teens, including pieces about wildfires, the Israel-Iran conflict, A.D.H.D., the Antarctic squid, ultraprocessed foods, BookTok, dementia, smartphones, how to be an artist and the appeal of ugly hiking sandals.
You can read the work of all of our winners since 2017 in this column. And remember that you can participate any or every week this summer until Aug. 15. Just check the top of this page, where we post updates, to find the right place to submit your response.
Winner
Alvin Su, 15, responded to a Style article from June, “Is It OK for Your Kids to ‘Rot’ All Summer?,” by writing:
At six, I spent summer on a farm, chasing dragonflies and stacking bottle caps into kingdoms. No camps. No schedules. No countdowns. Just cicadas screaming into dusk and our bare feet pressed against hot cement. We called it summer, and it felt like freedom.
Later, summer came with a price. I learned the word enrichment, and July became a checklist. Robotics camps. Leadership programs. STEM intensives. Calendars filled before spring had even ended. But I still remember one rare summer with no plans at all. Just the slow hum of an old fan. At first, I felt unproductive. Then boredom became a window. I read books no one had assigned. I wrote poems that led nowhere. I listened to silence until it bloomed.
That’s why Hannah Seligson’s article “Is It OK for Your Kids to ‘Rot’ All Summer?” stayed with me. Some parents now defend boredom as essential. I do not see rot. I see rest. I see the rare freedom to define time instead of having it defined for you. Some families cannot afford that kind of idleness not by choice, but because doing nothing has become a privilege. Screens replace tree forts. Safety concerns replace wandering. But what if boredom is not a problem to fix, but a skill to teach?
Summer does not need to be a launchpad. Sometimes it is a rooftop. A breeze. A dragonfly resting on your sleeve. Summer should not be a productivity contest. Sometimes it is firefly chasing and popsicle-sticky hands. We just need to leave space and trust for magic to grow wild again.
