Kids' writing contest (note: Americans only)

Here's a little gift for our friends to the south.

Unfortunately, only Americans can enter this contest. (I've got an e-mail in to one of the contest judges to ask why-oh-why they've limited it. But I digress.)

It's such a great-looking contest, that I want to point it out to GKR's American readers (you know who you are).

Remember Mimi, that large, clown-faced woman from the Drew Carey show? The actress' name is Kathy Kinney, and post-Carey she started a kids' reading website called Mrs. P.

Her site is hosting a writing contest for American kids, aged 4 to 13.

The two winning entries will be made into books complete with illustrations. (Let's hope they won't be drawn by the same person who did Mimi's make-up! Paf!)

The site is accepting entries starting Sept. 1, so it would be a great end-of-summer writing assigment for the kids. Uh, unless your kids have already started school? Ours don't start until Sept. 8 - but maybe Americans have already started.

Oh, someone, please inform me about what's going on south of Canada these days, because clearly I'm out of touch!

Here's a link to the contest. Good luck!

Additional info: I received a very thoughtful response from a contest judge and from one of the Mrs. P. website creators explaining why the contest is limited to Americans only.

It's a legal thing apparently. With gift certificates involved, it would be too difficult to administer internationally (according to their lawyers. Yeah, that's what I said too. A-heh.).

Anyway, they said that if they get a lot of response from non-Americans, they'll consider holding another contest that's not US-exclusive. So there's your homework, everyone!

Canadians (and Brits and everyone else - again, you know who you are)... do check out the Mrs. P. site. It's quite a major site and clearly they've got a lot invested in it. I found it a bit cumbersome to download, and everything had rather lengthy introductions before the "good stuff" so you should check it out before sending your kids there. However, there is quite a lot of content on the site, from games to Mrs. P. reading aloud.