Boy gives $10K prize to his mom's old library

NORTHVALE, N.J. (AP) - June 9, 2009 Joshua Tiprigan is a junior at Northern Valley Regional High School in Old Tappan. His essay won him the right to pick a library to receive a $10,000 award. He picked the Northvale Public Library in memory of his mother, who died of cancer a year ago.

Joshua's essay about the Rudyard Kipling poem "If" won the Letters About Literature contest. Joshua was one of two national first-place high school winners. He'll be honored by the New Jersey Center for the Book at a ceremony Thursday at Rutgers University.

Joshua's teacher Brian Hanson-Harding says he wrote a heartfelt story about how "reading for him is keeping a piece of his mother."

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Information from: The Record of Bergen County, http://www.northjersey.com

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