How To Get To Kalakazoo

Ammon won! He won 2nd place in the 3rd grade division of the local writing contest sponsored by PBS Kids. (The first place winners advanced to nationals.) Anyway, Ammon won! We went to the celebratory event today. I received a phone call a couple weeks ago from a lady at KUED (a local PBS station) telling me that Ammon had won, but she asked me not to tell Ammon until they announced it publicly. When we got to the party (event?) we immediately found Ammon's story. And then Ammon found out that only the winners got their stories displayed. How exciting! Later, they had the awards ceremony (or whatever they called it) and Ammon found out he won 2nd! He was so excited. He announced, "I TOTALLY ROCK!"

Ammon with his storyboard.

Ammon receiving his certificate, award bag (full of picture books, chapter books, activity books, a jumprope, popcorn, Crayola Twistables, and a WordGirl dvd with 8 episodes!!!!). He also received a hard-bound book, A is for Arches, directly from the author, Becky Hall. (You can see her in the photo.) There were 5 local children's authors present and each of the winners received a book from one of them.

The official photo of Ammon, with certificate, and Becky Hall. Check out those stunning Native American cheekbones on that kid. Boy, he's good-looking. Chris thinks his cheekbones are from my mom, making them Danish cheekbones, but that doesn't conjure up the same image in my head as "Native American cheekbones." Not to mention the subtle Psych reference.

There were several activities for the children and lots and lots of cookies. After the awards ceremony, a magician performed. As part of one trick, a kangaroo appeared. A baby kangaroo. This little fellah will grow to be about 6'1" and 190 pounds. Now I've seen lots of kangaroos, but this is the first one I've seen wearing a diaper. Or is it a Pull-up? Anyway, I had to take a photo.

All in all it was a great experience. If the contest was judged the same as last year, the judges included children's librarians, children's book authors, illustrators and visual artists, literary specialists, and others. So, that's pretty cool. Ammon's book will be posted online, but they haven't updated the website yet. I'll post the link when they do. And, his storyboard will be on display at Thanksgiving Point for the next few weeks. There were over 300 entries and 16 winners (1st-4th place in grades K-3rd). I'm so proud of him.

Oh, one more thing. The book. Ammon's book is called How To Get To Kalakazoo, by AmFoWo. Ammon used a pseudonym because he wrote the book in Seussian-type poetry. It's pretty clever. I love it. And I love him.

Oh, and another more thing. Sarah made Ammon a beautiful and artistic sign that says, "Ammon Woods rocks at books." She and Nathan raved all day about how cool their brother is and how proud they are of him. They didn't show any jealousy, just complete excitement over Ammon's success. I love them, too.

I love days like today. The only disappointment was that the episodes on the WordGirl dvd don't include the "May I Have a Word?" bit or the Captain Huggyface dance at the end.