Iowa Wins Challenge

The ending of the Clinton Challenge is often a surprise, and this year was no different.

After 14 weeks of reading, Clinton, Iowa, has won for the second year in a row. Kate Struble, Community Engagement Specialist at the Clinton Public Library, said they had a lot of patrons turn in their reading time for the whole summer at the last minute, leading to a total of 27,445 hours.

Pennsylvania also had enormous numbers come in for the last week, and finished in second place with 26,650 hours.

New York battled for first place for the second half of the summer, and despite a huge gain in week 14, finished in third place with 25,108 hours.

The fourth-place finish was really close. In the end, newcomer Indiana (19,422 hours) beat out Massachusetts (19,405 hours) by only 17 hours.

New Jersey’s Team Captain reported in with 14,177 hours, saying, “I know we lost, but we still had a lot of fun!” Win or lose, the biggest news is that more than 1,000 people at six libraries read for ...