Summer Reading Contest, Week 1: What Got Your Attention in The Times This Week?

Our 14th Annual Summer Reading Contest begins!

This contest is open to students 13-19 from anywhere in the world. To participate, submit a response by 9 a.m. Eastern on June 16 that answers the questions “What got your attention in The New York Times this week? Why?”

If you are 13 or older and live in the United States, or 16 or older from anywhere else in the world, post your response in the comment section. If you are a teacher, parent or guardian of a student or child who is 13-15 and lives outside the United States, see the bottom of this post for details on how to submit.

Responses must be 1,500 characters — about 250 words — or fewer.

What should you choose? Well, as you know from the rules we’ve posted, you can pick anything published on nytimes.com in 2023, including articles, essays, videos, photos, podcasts or graphics.

So what did you read, watch or listen to this week? Maybe you were consumed by front-page headlines about the train crash in India or the wildfires in Canada — or maybe you were more taken with this quiz that tests whether you can make a split-second pass like an N.B.A. pro, or with stories about the benefits of art for your mental health, how to become a birder or growing up as a queer teenager.

We don’t care what you choose, we just want to hear why you chose it.

We hope you’ll click around nytimes.com and find your own great articles, features and multimedia. But we also know that not everyone who participates has a Times subscription. Because all links to Times content from the student features on our site are free, every week we’ll try to help by posting interesting pieces from a variety of sections.

For example, this week you may have read front-page news articles like …

Oklahoma Approves First Religious Charter School in the U.S.

Or, maybe you discovered stories in the Style, International, Sports, Business, Magazine, Arts, U.S., Travel, Science, Health or Smarter Living sections like …

On the Front Line of an Education Revolution

Einstein and a Theory of Disinformation

Let’s Smash the College Admissions Process

‘Doing the Work’ and the Obsession With Superficial Self-Improvement

I Know Why Disney Is Fighting DeSantis

Whatever caught your eye, tell us about it.

Need more details? The contest rules are all here, and you can read the work of last year’s winners here. A quick overview, though:

• You can choose from anything published in the print paper or on nytimes.com in 2023, including videos, podcasts, graphics and photographs. (In your response, please include the URL or headline of the piece you pick.)

• We’ll post this question each Friday from today through Aug. 11, and you’ll have until the next Friday morning to respond with your picks. Then we’ll close that post and open a new one with the same question.

• We’ll choose at least one favorite answer to feature on our site each week. Winners from this week will be announced on June 27.

• Feel free to participate each week, but we allow only one submission per person per week.

• The contest is open to students ages 13 to 19 from anywhere in the world. If you are 13 or older and live in the United States, or 16 or older from anywhere else in the world, post your response in the comments section. If you are a teacher, parent or guardian of a student or child who is between the ages of 13 and 15 and lives outside of the United States, then you must submit an entry on the student’s behalf using the form below. All entries from the comments section and the form below will be judged together.