The magic spell contest for howweirdcanyouget.com has closed, and I have chosen my favorites. You can see them here: http://www.howweirdcanyouget.com/index_contest_winner_2012spring.html

The entries were wonderful. Besides the spells Griffith chose to work on this summer, there were many more, including wonderful words, like flazer and wizinko, disappearist and reappearist, and gothrow, mothrogh, cashmerish apearis, ruducto, and amobula. Wow.

There were also some stories from young writers that charmed me.

Thanks to everyone who entered,

Maureen

Griffith the wizard is looking for magical ideas to develop for his store – if you have a good one, send it in. Lots of great ideas have arrived, but he’s always looking for more.

He’s a little disappointed he hasn’t received any entries from adults. Only kids can win, but he likes to see what craziness adults come up with, too.

Maureen

The rules? Anyone can submit, but only kids can win. Send in an idea for a magic spell for Griffith the wizard to work on. He’ll chose his favorite, and send the winner a small leather-bound notebook for their own spells, and a signed copy of Feather Brain (or another book if the winner already owns Feather Brain).

Past winners and honourable mentions can be found on the website, if you want to see the awesome ideas kids have sent in previously.

The contest will be open until May 1, 2012.

Maureen

Maureen

The Winner: Matthew, age 10

Shoes to Glue – the soles of your runners are sticky so you can walk on walls and ceilings.

(Simple magic with great usefulness is ideal, and rare, in magical design.  This is perfect.  ­– Griffith)

In development:

Griffith will also be experimenting with

Jessica’s spell that makes you transport to the other side of the world and back (tricky, but enormously useful);

Kelsi’s spell to duplicate yourself and be at however many places you want to be at, but you must be careful. You can get in trouble from using this spell. You just say “make me be at all places with a few suitcases” (very tricky, but remarkably useful);

Daniel’s spell to make a video game come to life (this could be tricky, but it’s appealing because of how much trouble it could cause.)

I was intrigued by the story potential in many of the ideas, including:

from Kailee: a mythical monster in the office because he got in trouble. (Wouldn’t that be a great scene in a school?)

Abigayle suggested a story in which a brother and sister move into a new house, find a door and fall into a magical world. And their mother thought they were just in their rooms unpacking. (I love inattentive parents!)

from Will: You say “hulaboo” and it turns cardboard into cows. (Imagine the chaos!)

and for pure creepiness, from Masooma:

Once there was an evil witch who wanted to cast a spell on the fairies so she could drain their magic and make them work for her. Here is the spell:

make it do

make it new

cast a spell on these fairies

and make them into evil witch’s stew!!!!!!!

HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!

Thanks to everyone who entered. It was wonderful reading all your ideas.

Maureen

PS: Evil hackers are attacking the host for my website, so they’ve taken precautions, like not allowing any access from outside the US. Therefore, we’ll be delayed in posting this at maureenbush.com.

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