Five (5) lucky contestants will be given the chance to race inside the store and grab as many books as they want!

Thank you all for submitting such awesome entries for Book Grab! However, we can only choose 5 finalists to join the Book Grab race on July 24, 2010.

And they are:

Video category

Dominic Velasco

 

Michaela Tadena

 

Artwork

Vermil Villarico

Nicole Alejandro

 

Poem/Essay

Francesca Nicole Chan Torres

The Ballad of Fully Booked
By Francesca Nicole Chan Torres

(For the record, it’s really a ballad. Technically it can be sung, with some tweaking, to the tune of Josh Ritter’s “The Curse.” Only I’d much rather write than sing.)

***

She is fourteen, a junior, when you open your doors
Two blocks from her school; what delicious temptation.
Her mother berates her for spending too much,
But she reasons that books are the best education.

She screams when she finds that you’re five floors high
With a Starbucks on third, near the his’try selection.
When she takes the UPCAT and she thinks that she’s flunked,
She hides out for hours behind the Writing section.

She is lonely in lost, doesn’t have many friends,
But you’re warm and inviting and full of new treasures.
She runs her fingers ‘cross book spines, she’s lost in a daze –
Spending hours just browsing and having adventures.

***

She’s a senior and busy, but she takes time to visit.
Her green basket is full of books ad nauseum.
Some days when she’s lonely and stressed from her thesis
She wanders the shelves like she’s in a museum.

She graduates in ’09, she’s not done with you yet.
A sophomore she’s friends with loves RJ Ledesma.
She arranges a meeting at the Starbucks on third.
In the photos she’s grinning ‘cause she feels like Oprah.

That summer she has her hair permed into curls,
And she joins your workshops, hoping to write better.
It’s there she ends up meeting a girl from Cagayan
Who’s her college best friend now – her name is Esther.

***
She worries that she’s losing her love for books
When one day she finds nothing that grabs her attention.
But she keeps coming back, looking for something new,
And one day on the first floor she discovers Gaiman.

When she hears you’re on sale, she makes sure to stop by.
She starts her Alain de Botton and Bob Ong collections.
When she turns seventeen, her mom asks what she wants.
She begs for a chance to go to “Revelations.”

She cues up for hours, she meets some new friends
In the line while she’s clutching her copy of Smoke and Mirrors.
It is past ten PM when she finally gets through,
And she’s tired but it’s her best birthday gift ever.

***

It’s been three short years since you opened your doors
Two blocks from her high school; you’re still a temptation.
She finds out about Book Grab when there’s three days left,
And she tries to condense things to three simple reasons.

She has no luck – there is too much to say,
And the mem’ries they play in her head o’er and o’er.
Then it finally hits her, the three things she loves:
It’s the three years that you have been growing up with her…

Fin.

 

 

Congratulations! We’ll see you at the Book Grab race!

Congratulations to Vermil Villarico -- the top book grabber of 2010!