Kids Write 4 Kids Creative Writing Contest: Deadline March 31, 2024

Ripple Foundation, a Canadian educational charity run solely by volunteers, works diligently to support creative literacy for young people. To that end, they have established an annual writing contest called Kids Write 4 Kids, and that contest is on now. If you're a Canadian young person in Grades 4 through 8, then you have until March 31, 2024 to submit your story, whether fact or fiction, or poetry. Details are listed below.

Why You Should Enter?

•     Winners get published (see previous winners here).
•     Proceeds from book sales are donated to the winner’s charity of choice.
•     Winners become judges for next year’s contest.

Entry Details

•     Open to Canadian residents only.
•     Students must be in Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8.
•     Stories must be original and written entirely by the author.
•     Only one entry per author will be accepted. (Subsequent entries will be disqualified.)
•     Only single author stories qualify. (No co-authored stories.)
•     Stories are accepted in English only.
•     Stories can be fact or fiction, prose or poetry.
•     There is no entry fee and no purchase is necessary.
•     All entries must review the story checklist.
•     Entries must be submitted by the author’s teacher, parent, or guardian at this online form. 

Contest rules and regulations are posted here

 

 

Submissions

• Maximum word count: 5,000 words (includes “a,” “an,” and “the,” but not the words on non-story pages such as the title page).
• Invented spelling is accepted.
• The text must be typed and submitted as DOC file format.
• Do not submit any images. (If your story does have images and your story is selected,  Ripple Foundation will contact you to obtain original images.)

 

 Deadline for submissions

• March 31, 2024
  

 

Although the contest was announced last fall, I was slow to get this posted. But, young writers still have weeks to get a submission in. So, time to get writing!

 

Good luck!

 

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Polly Diamond and the Magic Book: Blog Tour Guest Post by author Alice Kuipers

This month sees the release of Alice Kuipers' newest children's book

Polly Diamond and the Magic Book

 Written by Alice Kuipers
Illustrated by Diana Toledano
Chronicle Books
978-1-4521-5232-5
120 pp.
Ages 6-9
May 2018

and

CanLit for LittleCanadians 

is pleased to be participating in the Blog Tour for the book's release

Today's guest post blog is from
author Alice Kuipers 
who shares with readers
about a free online course
she has created for children to get them writing.
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Welcome Alice Kuipers!

Thank you for having me here today! I love all your book suggestions and you always give me great ideas for books to share with my kids.

In my new book, Polly Diamond and the Magic Book, my main character loves to write. This got me thinking about making a course for young writers, one that they could do with their parents or on their own online. I filled the course with PDFs and downloadable movies, and hopefully lots of inspiration for up-and-coming writers to get their words on the page. Here’s a peek at one of the steps on Character, that I thought I could share with you today.


Your CHARACTERS are the people in your stories and poems. Here’s Polly Diamond!

Other characters in the book are her mom, her dad, and her sister Anna, who Polly turns into a BANANA!

As a super-star writer, you’re going to need to get to know your characters really well. And I’m going to show you how to do that!

I loved making the course—turns out I could talk and think about writing books all day long. I have a black piece of fabric from Fabricland here in my house which I hung up behind me (very high tech at this end!), so that the video content would be easy to watch, and tried to make the course as energetic and fun as possible. I thought of as many writing prompts as I could. Getting my four children to help out, I tested some of the ideas on them (mainly on the older two, who are eight and six, although my five year old surprised me with his storytelling!), and then, I sent everything over to Children’s Book Insider. I’ve been working with them for a number of years, and I’m the teacher for two of their courses: Chapter Book Blueprint, and Middle Grade and YA Blueprint. They put everything together and the FREE course for Super Star Writers is ready to go.

Sometimes, it’s easy to underestimate how brilliant kids are at telling stories—we have an innate ability, I think, to connect to stories, and I know from my work in classrooms and from hanging out with my own children that when I give just a few tips and hints, kids just love to make stories come alive (kind of how Polly makes stories ACTUALLY come alive in her magic book!)

Hopefully you and your children (or your class) enjoy the course—please let me know what I need to change or add to make it even more fun for the young writers in your life. And for those of you who enjoyed getting to know your characters, here are the first ten questions from the character worksheet for you to enjoy with the kids in your life.

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CHARACTER

You can try this with one character or with ALL of the characters in your stories!

Draw a picture of your character—like the picture of Polly Diamond!

Imagine you can sit down with your character and ask him or her questions.

Write the answers YOUR CHARACTER would say. For example, if I was interviewing Polly Diamond, I'd ask: “What is your name?” And she would answer, “My name is Polly Diamond.”

Question 1: What is your name?

Question 2: How old are you?

Question 3: What is your favorite thing to do?

Question 4: What do you do when you first wake up?

Question 5: What do you love to eat?

Question 6: Do you go to school? If yes, what grade are you in?

Question 7: Do you have any brothers or sisters? Can you describe them if you do?

Question 8: Tell me about your best friend.

Question 9: Do you have a secret?

Question 10: Have you ever been in trouble?

Here’s the link to the rest of the course:

https://writingblueprints.com/p/writing-course-ages-6-10/

Thank you so much for letting me share my ideas about writing with you.

Alice Kuipers

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Many thanks 

to Alice Kuipers for introducing young readers

and their teachers and families

 to her new online writing course for children

and 

to her publicist Susan Busse for arranging for this stop on the blog tour.

CanLit for LittleCanadians is always pleased to host Alice Kuipers 

whose books continue to inspire young Canadian readers 

and now get them writing too!

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Be sure to check out the other stops on Alice Kuipers' blog tour for Polly Diamond and the Magic Book:

May 3: Book Time

May 4: The Feedback Society

May 7: Yoyomama

May 8: Library of Pacific Tranquility

May 9:  Stuff to Do With Your Kids

May 10: Glimpse Reviews

May 11: Savvy Mom

May 12: Our Collective Muse 

Once Upon a Line

by Wallace Edwards

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-78-1

32 pp.

Ages 6-9

On sale September 16, 2015

With Once Upon a Line, Wallace Edwards has catapulted himself and his books to the status of must-haves for any home, school or public library.  The USA may have Chris Van Allsburg and most notably The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, but teachers will now be scrambling to use Once Upon a Line instead as the go-to book for story-starters and creative writing projects based on intriguingly unique illustrations that get the creative juices flowing.  And it all starts with one simple and ordinary line.  This line by this pen:

In the introduction to the book, Wallace Edwards recounts the history of Great-Uncle George’s enchanted pen and a line–the line seen above and on the endpapers and in every illustration within–that was the basis for his many paintings, only a handful which exist today and are reproduced within the book.  And, as the reader is told, “Each painting is the beginning of a story, and every story begins with “Once upon a line.” Where each painting’s story goes is up to the reader’s imagination.

From the elaborate entranceway of a mouse to her home that helps her remember…something, someone, somewhere… to the race between the chicken and the egg “until the fluffy one began to…” and an equine-allergic knight who finds a solution, and a rain that brings joy to an elephant and a story from a seagull, Once Upon a Line is resplendent in its fantastical graphic details.   There’s a pajamaed kitten, birds and alligators, a dragon, lush greenery, royalty, a fish or two, several aliens, a compendium of zoological creatures and a variety of candy-kissed vehicles.  And of course, there’s handlebar-moustached and chin-goateed Great-Uncle George, a dashing magician who bears a striking ressemblance to a swashbuckling Musketeer.  And for those who must know where "the" line is in each illustration, Wallace Edwards has kindly appended the book with a cheat sheet to help locate it.

Once Upon a Line is so rich in its visual effects and textual texture that it deserves all the golden stars on its cover (as well as the golden cover font that I reproduced so poorly here) and more. I predict even more shining accolades in Once Upon a Line's future for Wallace Edwards.

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Don't miss a chance at meeting Wallace Edwards who is one of the invited writers attending the Eden Mills Writers' Festival on Sunday, September 13, 2015.  Who knows?  There may even be early release copies of Once Upon a Line on sale there.