Female student won the 2022 National Reading Culture Ambassador A prize: Demanding books from mother's habits

Contest entry… lightning fast

At the beginning of the clip introducing the book “Living, Dreaming and Aspiration” by author Dao Ngoc Cuong, Gia Linh looked straight into the camera and asked a question in a warm, emotional Nghe An accent: “If you were the son of a crazy person, living with a crazy mother and an alcoholic father, what would it be like? The book “Living, Dreaming and Aspiration” will answer that question for us...”. This statement made a strong impression on the listeners. Even the author of the book “Living, Dreaming and Aspiration” - speaker Dao Ngoc Cuong, could not hide his emotions and said: “I cried right at the first sentence when I accidentally watched Linh’s clip”.

Nguyen Tran Gia Linh in the clip participating in the "Reading Culture Ambassador" contest in 2022. Photo cut from the clip.

The book “Living, Dreams and Aspirations” is a story about the life and determination of the author Dao Ngoc Cuong. Born and raised in poverty in a poor village, with an extremely difficult family situation, the author’s childhood was surrounded by deprivation, extreme hardship, beatings, fears… There were even times when the author had to give up his dream of going to school and thought about giving up on life.

After a failed suicide attempt, the teenager Dao Ngoc Cuong realized that life was valuable and determined to conquer his dream of going to school and rebuilding his life. With extraordinary determination and strong belief, author Dao Ngoc Cuong eventually became an inspirational speaker for many young Vietnamese people. With a simple and rustic storytelling style, the book touched the hearts of readers and left behind good emotions. It is even more meaningful when all profits from book sales are used by the author for charity purposes, helping children with cerebral palsy and those in difficult circumstances.

Commenting on Gia Linh's entry, the representative of the organizing committee of the contest "Ambassador"reading culture" 2022 shared: The book "Living, Dreams and Aspirations" carries sad confidences about a pitiful, haunting life. But from her profound, mature perspective, Gia Linh saw and filtered out positive values ​​from that story and turned it into a strong message to share with everyone. In addition, another factor that made the difference in Gia Linh's entry was the bilingual presentation with fluent, natural English ability.

Nguyen Tran Gia Linh at the award ceremony of the "Reading Culture Ambassador" contest in 2022. Photo: NVCC

With all the meticulousness in both content and performance, many people will be surprised to know that the time Gia Linh spent to complete her contest entry was only 2 and a half days, including finding books, reading books, writing essays in 2 languages ​​and filming and editing the clip.

“I learned about the contest when the deadline for submissions was approaching. Based on the contest theme, my mother and I found information about the book “Living, Dreams and Aspirations” on the internet. However, bookstores in Vinh city no longer had this book, so I had to order it from a bookstore in Thanh Hoa and have them deliver it by bus. I had one afternoon to read the entire book and one evening to write an introductory essay,” Gia Linh shared.

Gia Linh focused all her efforts to complete her entry in 2 and a half days. Photo: Diep Thanh

To finish the test on time, Linh stayed up until 3am on the same evening she received the book to write the explanation and fell asleep at the computer while correcting it. The next day, despite being very tired from not getting enough sleep, she had to start memorizing and recording right away.

The efforts were rewarded, surpassing more than one million students in the preliminary round, and nearly 1,400 entries in the final round, Gia Linh excellently won the A prize of the "Reading Culture Ambassador 2022" contest with the theme "Aspiration to develop the country".

Books and mother

Gia Linh has a small figure with a simple appearance, a calm face, intelligent eyes and a typical introverted personality. That appearance is completely suitable for Linh's hobby of reading. Sharing about this hobby, Linh said that her love for books was influenced by her mother's habits.

“My mother is a person who loves reading. Ever since I was very young, I have been familiar with the image of my mother spending time reading after every meal, the way she cherishes good books. Even later, when she was extremely busy with both business and taking care of 5 young children, with no time for herself, my mother still tried to regularly take us to buy books, helping us build our own personal bookshelf with age-appropriate suggestions,” Linh shared.

Mother is the person who greatly influences Gia Linh's reading habits and passion. Photo: Diep Thanh

Explaining her guidance for her children on reading, Ms. Tran Ha Giang - Linh's mother, confided: "I understand that books are an endless source of knowledge, a teacher, a friend, not only providing knowledge about all areas of life but also helping to form and develop personality, especially at school age. I hope my children will realize this as soon as possible and know how to filter out the good things from books to grow up to become kind and useful people."

Not only is Linh a keen reader and good at literature, she is also known by her friends as a student with many outstanding talents. Under her mother's guidance, Linh participated in many skill classes and performed very well in every subject. Sharing the secret to completing many tasks at the same time and balancing time for extracurricular activities as well as studying, Linh confided: "I think the ability to concentrate highly has helped me complete my tasks well. Once I do something, I will devote all my heart and soul to the task, not stopping or leaving it unfinished until it is finished."

A corner of Nguyen Tran Gia Linh's bookshelf. Photo: Diep Thanh

According to Linh, reading books is a very good way to practice concentration. “With the increasing trend of using social networks today, people's concentration will be significantly reduced, distraction is very likely to happen when we often surf short clips, read quick information. Not to mention, bad, unfiltered information on the internet will also negatively affect the perception of young people. That is also the motivation for me to participate in this contest, within my ability, I hope to be able to contributespread reading cultureto many young people" - Linh shared more./.