我们的第十七届年度暑期阅读竞赛已经结束。在过去的十周里，我们邀请世界各地的青少年告诉我们哪些《纽约时报》的文章、散文、视频、播客、图表、照片等内容吸引了他们的注意力，并用短文或视频解释原因。
我们总共收到了 10,642 份参赛作品，本周，我们将公布最后一批决赛入围者名单，其中包括四位最高获奖者：Chloe Sohn凭借她的视频获奖，Alex Krystelle Boral、Dohyoung Kim和Valerie Herman凭借他们的文章获奖。
Our Winners
Alex Krystelle Boral, 16, from San Marcos, Calif., responded to the Opinion essay “To Find Happiness, I Stopped Talking. It Helped.”:
Though my perspective has changed, I know I would’ve felt personally attacked if I read the article “To Find Happiness, I Stopped Talking. It Helped.” a year ago.
TMI wasn’t a thing in my world. My friends had the privilege of hearing every detail about my life, whether it be my crushes or my test scores. Other times, it was a dance rehearsal or a slip-up in my French class.
While this habit has passed with time, Fishman’s words got me thinking about where it came from. His article had an answer: the noise of social media and daily life.
As a high schooler, I’ve fallen into a college admissions rabbit hole, meaning I constantly see posts and fear mongering centered on college applications. This began to perpetuate a fear that controlled every move: the fear of falling behind.
To combat this fear, I explained everything. It was my attempt at defending my honor — my attempt to prove that I wasn’t behind, but doing something right. Even when I messed up.
Like Fishman, I found solace in the outdoors. Long walks and hikes became a source of calm, even when the trails were anything but. The noise of the world faded, leaving the sound of rocky footsteps and ducks on a lake.
I learned the most about myself in the one place where it didn’t matter. The trees didn’t ask for my GPA. The rocks didn’t care about my activities list.
I learned that letting the silence of nature talk did more for me than any post or sign of approval did. Even if my younger self would beg to differ.
Chloe Sohn, 15, from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., commented on the U.K. politics article “How Nigel Farage Ended Up Running Against a Man Dressed as a Trash Can” in a video:
视频链接：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWP8QN6W2ho
Dohyoung Kim, 16, from Potomac, Md., reacted to the Times Magazine piece “Saying ‘Google It’ Makes You Sound Old. Search It Up!”:
I barely knew any English eight years ago.
Before immigrating to the United States, I took beginner classes in South Korea, where I learned phrases like “Hi” and “Good, and you?” However, a couple of days later, I stepped into my classroom, where students greeted me with “wassup”s and “yo”s. The truth is, though, the English I had learned wasn’t wrong — it simply belonged to earlier generations.
Eight years later, I thought I had finally caught up. I’m now a fluent English-speaking teenager, so I was surprised when the article “Saying ‘Google It’ Makes You Sound Old. Search It Up!” talked about how saying “Google it,” a phrase I thought was completely normal, is becoming outdated among younger people due to the development of A.I. models, and “search it up” is the more current phrase. In fact, an 11-year-old interviewed for the article had never even heard any of her friends say “I Googled it” before.
What surprised me wasn’t just that the phrase had changed, but that I hadn’t even noticed. I thought that if I learned enough vocabulary and grammar, I would eventually catch up. But this article made me realize that there is no finish line. New expressions appear, old ones become outdated, and each generation reshapes the language little by little.
Eight years ago, I was afraid I wouldn’t catch up to English. Now, I realize that no one ever does. Perhaps being fluent isn’t knowing every phrase people use, but rather being comfortable adjusting as the language changes around me.
And Valerie Herman, 17, from Cherry Hill, N.J., wrote a moving reflection on “Another Giant Leap Reminds Us How Small We Are”:
It’s just the three of us, in an old car, in an empty parking lot, heads sticking out the windows and necks craned back to look at the never-ending sky.
“Do you guys think the universe is too big or too small?” I ask.
“Too big,” they say back to me in unison.
Ruth Graham’s article “Another Giant Leap Reminds Us How Small We Are” echoes that sentiment.
Artemis II isn’t in the sky tonight. We’re just teenagers talking about college and our secret dreams and the fact that Earth is “merely one small sphere in an endless expanse.”
When I look up at the sky, though, I think we’ve made the universe too small.
We’re all thinking our big thoughts in our tiny bodies, and we’re so grand for that: our dreams and emotions, water in overflowing cups.
Then, all too few of us get to taste it. Space travel “is still out of reach for all but government-sponsored astronauts and the wealthiest space tourists.”
Scratch space travel — we’ll never even see all of Earth. Rich or poor, the world is only as vast as time allows it to be.
We’re talking about college, hoping for enough financial aid and merit to make it work. Space? First, let us make it out of our home states.
Our enormous universe, constantly shrinking to fit within our arm’s reach.
“Let’s hang out again next week.”
Just the three of us, in our tiny lives. Us, in an old car, in an empty parking lot, sharing the stars between us three and everyone else looking.
“Yeah.”
Runners-Up
Ahalya Sahai Mittal on “All This Staring at Our Faces Is Messing With Our Heads”
Angie Yang on “How We Speak Has Gotten Extravagant. Literally.”
Darby Yang on “Sun’s Out, Umbrellas Out”
Ella Armstrong on “Look Up at the Sky. The Perseid Meteor Shower Will Awe You.”
Emerald Valentine on “Trump Administration Is Repurposing Federal Land for A.I. Data Centers”
Hanie Shan on “How Does One Brain Speak Two Languages?”
Ian Kim on “When His Church Goes Dark, They Talk to His Digital Twin”
Megha Mishra on “I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I.”
Mia Chang on “Stop Location-Tracking Your Friends and Lovers”
Nora Lan on “BTS, K-Pop Giants, to Boycott the Grammys”
Om Vegesna on “Ariana Grande and the Debate Over Health, Privacy and Celebrity”
Sara Ansari on “‘Spider-Man’ Opens to $932 Million Worldwide, Defying Superhero Slump”
Honorable Mentions
Amber Xu on “Aiming for My Fastest Marathon, I Turned to Distance Running’s Mecca”
Annais Sohn on “How to Stop Procrastinating”
Anya Bollineni on “Listening to New York City”
Chloe Cairns on “The Little Rituals That Prepare You for Sleep”
Chloe Cheng on “Touching Grass”
Elaine Wang on “My Son Was Killed by ICE. I Want Accountability.”
Elizabeth Lu on “Lawyer Arguing at Supreme Court to Save Birthright Citizenship Is a Birthright Citizen”
Gavin Reddy on “Lake Mead, the Nation’s Largest Reservoir, Is Smaller Than Ever”
Guancheng Wang on “A Ton of Space Junk Tumbles Unpredictably to Earth Every Week”
Jiayi Wu on “Your Cat Is Being Nice? Think Again.”
Jiyul Lee on “How We Speak Has Gotten Extravagant. Literally.”
Kate Moretski on “The U.S. Relies on Family Caregivers. Millions of Them Are Kids”
Katherine Xie on “To Find Happiness, I Stopped Talking. It Helped.”
Kerem Carikcilar on “The Gospel According to Anthony Bourdain”
Keya Dedasaniya on “The Best Ice Cream Shops in New York City Right Now”
Luke A. Schioppo on “13-Year-Olds Have Problems at Work, Too”
Makayla Niu on “You Paid to Have Old Clothes Recycled. Here’s What That Really Means.”
Matthew Smith on “Aryna Sabalenka Undone by the Wind at French Open Again as Diana Shnaider Seizes Her Moment”
Nevaeh Tejani on “An Invasive Mosquito Is Spreading With Alarming Speed, Threatening Africa’s Cities”
Sarah Hartey on “I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I.”
Sophie Liu on “The Best Ice Cream Shops in New York City Right Now”
Syndia Jin on “What Does Summer Taste Like?”
Vidya Hariani on “Is This What a Post-Literate Era Looks Like?”
William Beebe on “Gen Z-ers Dress Like They’ve Never Worn Clothes Before”
