Maureen Bush

The Nexus Ring’s Second Cover

Here’s the Scholastic cover for The Nexus Ring, published for a grade six in-class book club of fantasy novels.

Maureen

Lawn Bunny

We had a little fairy tale morning in the garden, with dappled sunshine, leaves rustling in the breeze, birds chirping, and a bunny grazing on clover. Luckily he prefers clover in the lawn to lettuce in the garden, so we get along well.

Maureen

CCBC Best Books

Feather Brain is a CCBC Best Books for Kids and Teens 2009 selection.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the Canadian Children’s Book Council puts out a catalogue each June of the best kids books, magazines, CDS and DVDs published in Canada in the previous year. It’s a great way to learn about books for your kids, and for all those birthday and Christmas presents for friends and relatives. (www.bookcentre.ca)

Maureen

In Praise of howweirdcanyouget.com

I received a wonderful email from a teacher at Olivet New Church school in Ontario (the birthplace of Alice the Apatosaurus):

The kids clearly loved Featherbrain, but more than that, they loved your
Howweirdcanyouget site. Shall I tell you how we discovered it? It was one of
those “the teacher has ADD” moments, let me tell you! We were having SSR
time, and all was quiet in the classroom. We were sharing the Silver Birch
books and it was my turn to read Featherbrain. (I try to read all the books
I ask the kids to read) My eyes fixed on the www.com address and I thought
“Let’s ruin the quiet atmosphere with some excitement” (or something like
that; I don’t actually remember what I was thinking) and announced (probably
without thinking) “I wonder if this is a real site?” The kids, some of whom
are always looking for a distraction anyway, were quite eager to check it
out. As you know, we only have 4 students, so it was easy for us to crowd
around the computer. I wish I had a video of us at that time. We quickly
decided we had to buy a magic potion. Naturally I had to be quite dramatic
as I wondered out loud how safe this is, and if the authorities know about
this (etc ~LOL) Y kept worrying about the price; how were we going to pay
the $19.95? At each pop-up I asked the kids (trepidation quivering in my
voice) “Should we go on?” The kids’ voices got louder; there was a fever
pitch in the air as they yelled “YES!” to each one. When we finally got to
the last one that denied access we all burst out laughing. Some nervous
laughter if I sensed that correctly    Well, SSR was shot for the day, LOL!
but reading had suddenly become more interesting. (Bull’s-eye!!!!)

We used your invitation to submit to a contest to talk about recipes and how
to write one. I jumped off from there and I read the 3 witches’ part from
Shakespeare’s’ Macbeth out loud (nice recipe there!) to them. They were
excited to write their own recipes for magic.

I was thrilled with this letter – to have a part in reaching kids, to hear about how much fun the kids had, and to learn how a great teacher can bring learning alive. And it really made me laugh!

Maureen

and The Winner Is . . .

It’s time to conclude the contest for howweirdcanyouget.com. Griffith, the wizard who owns the site, asked for magical ideas. For the best idea, he offered a leather-bound book for recording spells, and a signed copy of Feather Brain, as a reminder of how magic can go wrong.

The contest entries were wonderful – imaginative and funny and sometimes a little scary. It was a blast reading them, and really hard to chose the winner. Special thanks to the kids from Teresa’s class at Keeler School, who sent so many great ideas.

Perhaps the most practical entry came from an adult named Mark (okay, my husband) – a “Do Over” button for undoing and fixing mistakes. This was not unlike a Time Machine for Mistakes, to go back and fix mistakes. Other useful ideas included several for making clones – wouldn’t it be useful to have a clone to do your homework and clean your room? Some entries were mini-stories, from future writers of fiction.

Griffith has chosen his favorite ideas to experiment with, and try to bring into development:

Caitlin’s Turn Yourself Into a Mermaid, and if that fails, Yoan’s Turning Humans Into Fish;

Luny’s Time Machine for Mistakes – to go back to fix mistakes;

Taylor’s Magic Dino Digger, a lustering potion for finding dinosaur bones;

Jayden’s Copy People’s Voices – to make yourself sound like another person of your choice; and

Josh’s Make Toys Come to Life.

The first runner up:

Turning into a mermaid!
by Caitlin (Age 9)

1kg-Cream soda
3 hairs-of a child at the age of six
10ml-of tears from an adult.
10 scales from a fish.
5 small pieces of cloth.
In a medium pot, stir all the ingredients together until well mixed. Cook at 350 degrees celsius for half an hour.
Take the  pot off and set aside to cool.
When cooled put into bowls and serve.
The spell lasts 2 days, so make sure you are back on land before that time or you will drown.
(should serve 5 people)

And the winner is:

The Weather Spell
by Fiona (Age 9)

The weather spell creates the weather. You could make any kind of weather by saying,  “Weather!” and say what it is.  Here’s the example: “Weather – snow!” and it snows.

The ingredients are, snow, rain, grass, flowers, and the last  ingredients are the moon and the stars. Mix them in a pot and put your hand in it.

It works by saying “Weather, weather come to me!” and all weather will be yours. And everyday you need to dip your hands in the pot. This means that you need to save the ingredients in the pot. It works in a dark , dark place and it needs to be a place that you are scared of.

Warning: If some one sees your pot with the ingredients, you will disappear forever.

Thanks to everyone who entered. Keep watch – I may have another contest in the fall.

Maureen