After breaking the school’s AR point record, Justin set a personal goal to break the National AR record of 2,018 points in an 8 month period. He exceeded that point total and went on to reach a final total of 2,718.6 points within 9 months. When asked why he enjoys reading so much, Justin replied, “ Books are fun...I like the bible, science, history, even biography. At every moment, the best book I like is the one I started reading.” In honor of Justin’s amazing achievements, Montgomery Catholic has created a new AR award for students called the “Justin Lee Top Hat” award.
During the 2020-21 school year, Justin read and tested on a total of 333 books in order to get his final AR point total. According to Justin’s mother, Helen Lee, he actually read closer to 700-1000 books this school year, but the Accelerated Reader program does not contain tests for the rest of the books that he has read this year. Mrs. Lee explained that Justin has always had a strong interest in books. She says, “When I asked Justin what gift he would like on his 7th birthday, he replied, ‘I want to have a library at home.’ My husband and I laughed, but his grandfather, who heard the story, funded to make a library for Justin. The library contains more than 10,000 books now.”
Justin is not only a gifted reader, but he’s also a straight-A student, speaks several languages including English and Korean, is a second-degree black belt in Taekwondo, and plays piano, trumpet, and guitar.
