Inaaya Sethi’s story The Team Animal Ninja Competition has received the 1st place honor in the third grade category in WSKG’s local 2016 PBS KIDS Writers Contest. Inaaya is 8 years old and in third grade at The Crescent Academy in Johnson City, NY. Inaaya loves to draw, colour, and write stories. She’s a Girl Scout who loves the outdoors and is on the lacrosse team. You can often find her outside hiking by the river, swimming, slacklining or biking. When inside, she reads Arabic, plays the violin and attends Gymnastics and Ninja classes. Her favorite show is, of course, American Ninja Warrior. During the school year she participated in Odyssey of the Mind and learned how even little kids, through a lot of hard work and team work, can make it to the Odyssey of the Mind New York State Competition. Inaaya is the youngest of three and shares a lot of her passions with her older sister, Kynzee, and her big brother, Keyahn, who also enjoys writing PBS stories. She hopes to travel to China one day. Here are her thoughts on the experience:
What is your story about? Can you summarize it in just a sentence or two?
My story is about two teams that compete in a Team Animal Ninja Competition. One team has strong animals that don’t work well and small animals that work well together. I wanted to tell a story about how small people can do big things as long as they work together.
How did you come up with the story ideas that depict the moral?
My inspiration for the story came from my Odyssey of the Mind experience this year at the Regional and New York State Competition. I saw how teams that worked well together did better. I also learned about China and the animals in my story from my OM research.
Are you working on any additional stories right now?
No. It’s almost summer vacation!
Thank you for sharing this story with WSKG! How did you hear about the Contest?
I first heard about the story from my big brother who has won every year!
Which part did you enjoy most — writing the story or making the illustrations that accompanied the plot?
I liked the illustration part more because I love drawing animals!
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I hope this is an inspiring story for everyone.
Check out the full list of winning stories here!