Students compete for the state championship

On May 20, the state finals of the 67th German Book Trade Reading Competition for Saxony-Anhalt took place at the Krokoseum of the Francke Foundations in cooperation with the orphanage’s bookstore. Four students competed against one another.

Noam Billie Fuchs from the Giebichenstein Gymnasium »Thomas Müntzer« in Halle (Saale) emerged as the state winner. With a confident reading of a passage from »The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe« by C. S. Lewis, she impressed the jury and qualified for the national finals on June 24, 2026.

The jury included Nils Wagner (orphanage’s bookstore), Maja Schulze (Krokoseum), and Branka Ivusic (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg).

The reading competition was co-founded by Erich Kästner in 1959 and is one of the largest and most traditional student competitions in Germany. This year, more than 560,000 sixth graders from around 7,200 schools across the country participated.

We warmly congratulate Noam Billie Fuchs on her state victory and wish her every success in the national finals!