Hi LovemyDD- first, totally agree about the brags, I love to read all of them!

When DD was younger she entered a contest through Creative Communications, organized by our school's gifted teacher. Mixed feelings- DD was super-excited when her work was chosen for the published book, so it was a great motivator for her, and gave her some external recognition for something that didn't really get any notice at all among her peers/school. However, my feeling is that the contests exist mainly to get parents to purchase the books. You certainly don't have to buy one (and our school stressed that they purchase one for the school library so parents don't feel pressured). So, knowing that, I think it really depends what you want out of it. There is no downside I'm aware of to sending in her work, but because we went through the school, I didn't really have anything to do with that. We do still get email invitations for DD to enter things and also to review entries for other contests, but she has not participated since the school contest.