Martyn Godfrey Young Writers' Award
2008 Winners

Albertan Kids Write On

The Young Alberta Book Society is delighted to announce the winners of the Martyn Godfrey Young Writers' Award, generously sponsored by the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association.

This year’s winners are Stephanie Starchuk, 12, of Edmonton, and Jaimee Ruffnak, 15, of Viking.

The award is named after Martyn Godfrey, a prolific and popular juvenile fiction author who was a schoolteacher when one of his students challenged him to write a story for his class. The story turned into his first book and Mr. Godfrey turned into a published author. He quickly found his niche and eventually wrote more than 40 books — most of them humourous. In 2008, many Albertan junior high students took up the challenge to emulate Martyn Godfrey by submitting a funny story to this annual, juried competition.

Martyn Godfrey's son and daughter juried the entries and were very impressed with the quality of the stories received. They congratulate all the budding scribes who entered. Talented young writers Jaimee and Stephanie will be attending the Youthwrite writing camp at Bragg Creek in July and will also be visited by an Albertan literary artist in their school classrooms in October through the Taleblazers Festival. Taleblazers is a province-wide literary festival where Albertan authors, illustrators and storytellers work with students through presentations and workshops in schools and libraries throughout October.

The Young Alberta Book Society runs the award, which the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association has sponsored since 2007. AWNA is a network of Alberta’s community newspapers.

Contact:
Stephanie Gregorwich
Young Alberta Book Society
11759 Groat Road
Edmonton, AB T5M 3K6

Tel: 780-422-8232
Fax: 780-422-8239
info@yabs.ab.ca
www.yabs.ab.ca

Jaimee and Stephanie have given their permission to have their entries published in AWNA member newspapers if that is desired. Their entries are below: “Cake” by Jaimee Ruffnak and “Anyone Can Be a Flamingo” by Stephanie Starchuk.

Cake — By Jaimee Russnak, Viking

Ellie Reynolds groaned as the bell rang, signaling the end of math. She had gym class next, which she loathed. It was bad enough being large for her age, but at least in math class her athletically challenged, fat self wasn’t on display, like it was during gym.

She jostled her way through the throng of students to the gymnasium and reluctantly swung open the door. As always, she had made sure she was slightly late; not so late as to get in trouble, but late enough for most of the girls to be changed, saving her the humiliation of changing in front of them. She had her pride after all.

Changing as quickly as she could, Ellie soon joined her best friends, Sara and Oliver in the group of kids assembled in front of Coach Carlson. Coach Carlson was a meat-headed, insensitive slave-driver, oblivious to the fact that some teenagers were not meant to be athletes, and one of Ellie’s least favorite people. When he announced that today they were doing his physical fitness-obstacle course challenge, her hatred was only intensified.

“Well, this ought to be good. I love obstacle courses,” she said dryly. She could always be counted on to say something sarcastic, especially when she was trying to avoid the feeling of dread that was spreading through her at a rapid pace. “One of my favorite things to do, really, I mean, after swimming the English Channel and bathing suit shopping, of course.”

Sara patted her sympathetically on the shoulder.

“You’ll be fine,” she reassured Ellie. “Yeah, right. You’ll be fine. You love gym like a fat kid, I mean like I, love cake,” Ellie replied.

They fell into line to await their turns. A voice reached their ears from behind saying, “Should be interesting to watch Ellie the Elephant try this.” Ellie recognized the speaker as the one person she hated more than Coach Carlson, Brooke Dawson, the most beautiful, skinny, and rude person in the school. Possibly the rudest person she’d ever met.

“Don’t listen to her,” Oliver muttered, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses higher on his nose. Ellie knew that Brooke was just being her normally cruel self, but she couldn’t help feeling nervous. She knew she wasn’t good at gym, but she didn’t want to completely embarrass herself, besides, it would only give Brooke another reason to ridicule her.

As her turn drew nearer, she grew increasingly anxious. Everyone, Sara included, was doing exceptionally well. If only someone would mess up, she would feel better. If only she wasn’t about to make a complete fool out of herself. If only she could get out of doing it…

“I know,” she exclaimed, inspiration hitting her, “I’ll fake an asthma attack.”

“You don’t have asthma,” pointed out Oliver.

“A twisted ankle then!” Oliver looked skeptical. “Oh, you come up with something better,” she said huffily, still racking her brains for an idea. Fainting, the flu, cramps? Nah, how about- “Maybe you should just try it,” he responded.

“Maybe you should just try it,” Ellie mimicked. “Yeah, and while I’m at it, why don’t I run a marathon as well?” she snapped. And he was supposed to be the smart one. Glancing up, panic filled her as she realized there was one more person to go before she mortally embarrassed herself. Twisting the strands of her frizzy brown hair, the way she always did when she was nervous, Ellie wished she were a faster runner, so she could slip out the gym door and not get caught…

“Reynolds, you’re up!” Coach Carlson shouted.

“Oh, goody. It’s like Christmas, I’m so excited,” she rolled her eyes. Jogging to the starting point, Ellie heard Brooke, expertly talking loud enough for Ellie, but not Coach Carlson, to hear.

“Earthquake! Earthquake!” Her friends laughed, sending shivers down Ellie’s spine. “I swear, if I was that huge, I would never show my face in public.”

Ellie whipped around and glared at them.

“I am so sick of you picking on me all of the time. I have feelings you know!” she yelled furiously. “And for the record, I would never show my face in public if I was as rude and horrible as you!” she added coldly. Brooke looked shocked, never before in all of the years they’d known each other, had Ellie ever retaliated.

“Reynolds, I said you’re up!” Coach Carlson repeated, never once looking up from his clipboard, the insensitive, meat-headed side of him showing through. Her face burning, Ellie turned towards him. She’d show Brooke that it didn’t matter how big she was. She could do this if everyone else could.

“Good luck, Elephant. You’ll need it,” Brooke called, breaking into her thoughts.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Ellie muttered. You can do this, Ellie, she told herself. Run a bit, jump some stuff, easy, really, and then you’re done. Piece of cake.

The whistle blew and Ellie took off, her feet pounding against the floor as she raced towards the hurdles. She leaped them and headed for the skipping ropes. Ignoring the round of laughs from her classmates, Ellie focused only on skipping, on getting to one hundred skips no matter how many times she tripped over the rope. From the sidelines, Sara and Oliver cheered her on.

Dripping with sweat, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps, she careened through the rest of the obstacles, until finally she was at the climbing rope. The climbing rope had been at the root of her hatred of gym. Climbing the rope had been the very first time she had been made fun of and was so embarrassed she’d cried, and she had never made it to the top.

Today, though, she was going to. Today, she was strong, she was capable, and most importantly, today, she didn’t care what she looked like climbing that rope, she was going to do it.

Gripping it in her hands, she began to drag herself up, excruciatingly slowly. Her lungs felt like they were going to explode but she was halfway there. Determinedly, she continued to clamber up and then the bell rang, reverberating loudly in her head. Class was over, her chance was over.

From below, Coach Carlson boomed, “You’re going to have to start over next class.”

Ellie slid down, the rope burning her hands. Start over? Was he kidding? There was no way she-

“Way to go, Ellie! You did awesome!” Sara hugged her excitedly.

“I didn’t even finish,” Ellie mumbled, sitting on the cold, hard floor and hugging her knees to her chest, dejectedly pinching the layer of fat on her legs.

“Who cares? You did great. I’ve never seen you so determined in gym class.”

At that moment Brooke sauntered by. “You set a new record. Never before has it taken someone that long to climb a rope. Nice job, Elephant,” she smirked.

Watching her go, Ellie realized that no matter what, she would never be looked upon by Brooke with respect, but, maybe she didn’t need Brooke’s respect, maybe she just needed her own. Ellie swallowed her disappointment and started to laugh, a loud, belly-aching laugh.

“She’s right, you guys,” she told Oliver and Sara. “I set a record. We should celebrate with some ice cream, two scoops, and I’m buying. Or better yet, my mom made a cake last night. And you know how I love cake,” she grinned.

top

Anyone Can Be a Flamingo — By Stephanie Starchuk, Edmonton

What's fun, lovable and pink all over? I'm sorry to say that if you guessed yourself you are sadly mistaken. A flamingo is the correct answer. Now you're probably wondering why I brought this up. Well, it's just due to my theory that anyone can be a flamingo. Just follow these simple steps and soon enough your own mother won't be able to tell the difference.

Well, let's look at the basics here. To pass off as a flamingo you first have to meet all of the needed qualifications of a flamingo. You have to be tall, loud mouthed, pink, and feathered. Looking you over, one out of four isn't bad at all, you are already ahead of everyone else. (Good for you). Now let's get started.

As everyone knows, flamingos live in tropical areas. So to actually convince people that you are a flamingo you must be among the birds themselves. (And just to tell you that this trip is not all expenses paid and you will have to use your own money to travel). So get going, buddy, I'll wait.

Okay, now that you have arrived at your tropical destination (wherever that may be), it's time to work on your appearance because at the current moment, you are the most hideous flamingo I have seen in my entire lifetime. No offence.

If you haven't realized that flamingos are pink, go to the nearest hardware store and buy out their entire supply of permanent pink paint. Don't worry, it shouldn't cost you that much. (If you have about a couple thousand dollars, well now we can put it to good use). Next dump it all into a large vat of some kind (not provided by me) and jump in. For your own safety I'm obligated to tell you not to drink the paint but, if you want to, that's perfectly fine too, I could care less. After a few hours you will be forever dyed pink, congratulations for accomplishing that.

Wow! That's already an improvement. Thanks to me at least you don't look like a rotten cucumber. You look more like melted cotton candy, so as you see we still have a long road ahead of us. To be brutally honest, there is a major issue with your height. You are a shrimp! Really, I mean right now you would not ever surpass the height of the average third grader. I'm sorry to say this but, that's just pathetic considering how freaking old you must be! But being the brillant person I am, I can solve this dilemma too.

Like all of life's problems, this one can be solved with the use of stilts, of a good sturdy pair of stilts. Now to get the stilts, it's as easy as finding someone who has them and, well, the rest goes without saying. If you don't know how to walk on stilts, the best way to learn is by experience. So start practicing. Once you've got the hang of that, since flamingos have webbed feet, you need to glue flippers to the bottom of each stilt. (Good luck trying to walk). Now just glue on some feathers and you are good to go.

Well, well, I did an amazing job if I do say so myself. You look exactly like a flamingo. I bet that if someone walked by you right now they would not be able to realize that under all the glue, paint, and feathers, there is a human being. (Unless that person is partially blind). I hope this experience was fun for you (it was for me) and enjoy your new life as a flamingo.

top