By Athena Stanley

Eating words may have never tasted this good.

UK Library CATS will sponsor its first “Good Enough to Eat” contest Tuesday as part of the Banned Books Week celebration.

The contest encourages students, faculty and staff to create edible representations of children’s books. The entries will be judged on creative design, taste, edibility and overall representation of the book, said Stephanie Reynolds, coordinator for the McConnell Center and director of the event.

Maggie Munley, a library and information science graduate student, is baking a cake based on children’s author Laura Joffe Numeroff’s book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”

“I loved the book as a kid,” Munley said. “It gives me the excuse to make both a cookie and a cake—kind of an added bonus.”

Reynolds said the creative deserts will interest children in reading a diverse selection of books.

“We want to inspire kids to rise to that level as well,” Reynolds said. “Our primary goal is to provide kids with books they can have in their own private libraries at home.”

Entries will be accepted at the M.I. King Library in room 504 until Tuesday between 10 a.m. and 3p.m. The two winners, one for best representation and one for best overall taste/edibility, will be awarded a certificate from the event.

All profits from the contest will go toward buying books for local children in an outreach project, Reynolds said. The event is an opportunity for students and staff to support intellectual freedom and to celebrate what it means to be literate, she said.

“I’ve seen all sorts of things submitted to these contests,” Reynolds said. “It doesn’t have to be hard, it just needs to be creative and edible.”

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the importance of the First Amendment and freedom to read.  The event draws attention to censorship by highlighting attempted and actual bannings of books throughout US history, according to the American Library Association’s Web site.

Michelle Ashcraft, assistant director of UK’s New Student and Parent Programs and coordinator of the Common Reading Experience, said the contest provides students creative ways support academic success.

“All of them relate back to a book that they really connected with growing up,” Ashcraft said. “This is a great way for college students to be able to relate back to that favorite childhood book of theirs. It may help them remember that reading was fun then and it’s still important today.”

For more information visit http://www.uky.edu/StudentAffairs/NewStudentPrograms/CommonReading/pdf/gete.pdf.