Maureen Bush

Contest

I’m having another contest for Feather Brain. Griffith the wizard is looking for more ideas to develop into magical products; check out his store at www.howweirdcanyouget.com.

The prize, once again, will be a small leather-bound notebook for recording magical ideas, and a signed copy of Feather Brain. Adults are welcome to send in ideas, but only kids can win.

Maureen

Sunburst Honourable Mention

Feather Brain has received an Honourable Mention for the 2009 YA Sunburst Award (that’s The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic). I’m a little puzzled, as Feather Brain is nowhere near a YA book, but still . . . this is fun. It’s a thrill to be on the Honourable Mention list with Arthur Slade (Jolted), and Kenneth Oppel (Starclimber), and one of my all-time favorites is on the shortlist: Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother.

The Shortlist (5 books) and Honourable Mention list (7 titles) would be a great place to search for recent Canadian fantasy and sci fi titles.

Maureen

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

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

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