Some Bertha Kennedy students are book-famous this month after winning a national writing contest.
Ottawa-based book publishers DC Canada Education Publishing released its One Story A Day by Kids for Kids anthology earlier this month. The book features the names of 23 Bertha Kennedy Catholic students who entered a story-writing contest related to the book.
DC Canada ran a contest earlier this year where Grade 1-6 students from across Canada could submit short stories for a chance to see them published in the anthology, said anthology editor Kara Cybanski. They received about 350 entries, 23 of which were from teacher Andrea Frick’s Grade 2 class at Bertha Kennedy.
While none of the stories from Bertha Kennedy were picked to get into the book, Cybanski said Frick’s class did win the prize for most entries from a single school, earning them $100 in cash and $100 in books from DC Canada.
Frick said she heard of this contest earlier this year and decided to have her class participate to practice fiction writing.
“The students were really great at incorporating dialogue into their stories,” she said, and demonstrated excellent command of grammar and punctuation.
Cybanski said the 32 stories picked for the anthology covered a wide variety of subjects, including ancient Greek myths, a magical hockey puck, First World War robots, fitting in, dementia, and a snail. Many involved magic or school settings.
Lydia Ellis, who was in Frick’s class last year, said she was excited when she learned her class won this contest. Her entry in it, The Adventures of December, was inspired by her class’s studies of arctic animals. In it, December the arctic fox faces off against an evil mouse who has evil eyes, evil ears, and an evil French moustache.
“It took a long time to plan everything,” Ellis said of the story, especially the plot and characters.
Frick said the class used its prize to hold a party with cake and sandwiches in May in the school’s gym. Students were excited to share their stories with each other and seemed excited about writing.
“Sometimes the kids would come in and say, ‘When’s writing class? Are we doing writing yet?’” Frick said.
“Just to see that enthusiasm of young readers and young writers who are excited about writing and excited to elicit their creativity, it’s all you could want as a teacher.”
Frick said she hopes to have her Grade 2 class participate in this contest again when it returns in 2024.
Visit www.dc-canada.ca for details on the book.
