Kids’ Lit Quiz Canada has had another year of growth!
From our humble beginnings of 13 teams in 2011, reaching 100 teams in our fifth year was a huge milestone! For more information on how we got from there to here, see last year's review
here.
Once again, we were thrilled to have excellent author participation in 2015. Many thanks to the Quizzards of Oz, Team Hirsute, The Inkslingers, Awesome Authors and Write Again - our intrepid author teams! Their names are listed at the end of this post, together with links to their websites.
It is wonderful for our KLQ readers to be in such fine company! Readers meet writers and writers meet their fans. I wonder how many KLQers will be inspired to become authors themselves?
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| Some of the fun at the 2015 Canadian heats |
We deeply appreciate the outreach programs some of our more established schools provided to other schools this year. Crescent School is to be commended for their excellent outreach, coaching and transportation provided to their partner school. Southridge School, Hillfield Strathallan, TDBank and a private donor also sponsored teams. We would love to see more development of this part of Kids’ Lit Quiz Canada!
2015 Kids' Lit Quiz Canada competition
Wayne arrived in British Columbia to begin his KLQ Canada tour in January. Vancouver’s Little Flower Academy hosted BC KLQ 2015. Scholastic Canada in BC has provided a beautiful trophy for the British Columbia KLQ champions - this year's winner was Southridge School.
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| Wayne Mills visits Niagara Falls |
The KLQ family is far reaching and we were delighted to have support from Marj Brown’s (KLQ SA) friend Erin help us out in Vancouver! Vancouver Kidsbooks provided wonderful prizes. We are looking forward to growing our program in BC next year. Simon Fraser University is supporting us by donating venue space for our 2016 BC heat! Thanks to Dr. Beth Marshall, Robert Bittner and Stephanie Yorath for their support.
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| Book Dress at the 2015 Canadian competition |
In Ontario, Mabel’s Fables have made Kids’ Lit Quiz Canada prizes truly wonderful for our big KLQ readers! Thank you, thank you, thank you! We can’t say it enough! We would also like to thank Gillian O’Reilly from the Canadian Children’s Book Centre who served as our adjudicator this year.
Each of the five Ontario heats had their own flavor and excitement…. This year, it was KLQ USA who had to contend with blizzards for our Quiz Master. We provided simply sunshine and bone chilling cold! (-25C most days!)
In May, an exhibition heat was held in Calgary Alberta, a western
province of Canada, which is home to the famous rodeo, The Calgary
Stampede. We are looking forward to running an official heat of KLQ
there in 2016.
2015 National Final
Crescent School hosted our National Final. The facilities are superb and an enthusiastic audience was there cheering on the teams! Thank you Crescent! TV Ontario covered our event and host Kara Harun even did a stint as Guest Quiz Master!
As in all KLQ events around the world…. nothing would happen without the dedication and support of our wonderful volunteers. We do appreciate their help so very much.
2015 World Final
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| The 2015 Canadian national team |
Southridge School from British Columbia represented Canada at the KLQ
World Final in Connecticut USA in July. Arman, Stephanie, Serena and Sarah did us proud! They also stumped the audience in a ‘Three Truths and a Lie’ event at Blue Back Square in West Hartford.
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| 2015 world champions, Southwell School, New Zealand |
Huge congratulations to Julie Huggins and her team from Southwell School in Hamilton, New Zealand. They were clear winners and a popular group of readers as well!
The Americans did a splendid job of hosting the world of KLQers! You can read more about that
here in Wayne Mills' post on the world final and 2015 in review.
Central Connecticut State University campus is beautiful and met our needs nicely. The theme of Super Readers/Heroes with the Super Wayne featured was so creative and well done! As always, the kids had a blast.
Pancakes!
In what is now becoming a tradition, KLQ Canada provided a pancake breakfast at the World Final…complete with real Maple Syrup, Canadian bacon and pancakes made from scratch! Yum! It turns out the Canadian Team and Coach Chong have flipped a pancake or two in their day!
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| Thanks Joyce! |
Onwards and Upwards!
2016 holds great promise for more growth. We now have charitable status
which means we qualify for funding from many foundations and other
organizations. We are excited about this potential, as it will provide
for KLQ Canada through a solid support base. We do need support!
We are excited about 2016 - celebrating more readers, making heroes of them along the way and encouraging reading everywhere! Good luck to the New Zealand organizers as they prepare for next year’s KLQ World Final in August at the IBBY Congress in beautiful Auckland!
Registration for schools to participate in KLQ Canada 2016 is now open. The regional heats and national final will be held from January 14 to February 4, 2016.
Happy Reading all!
Nancy Davidson,
KLQ Canada National Coordinator
See Kids' Lit Quiz Canada's Facebook page, here, for contact information. Also, the Canada page of the Kids' Lit Quiz here (http://www.kidslitquiz.com/national-competitions/canada)
Introducing some Canadian authors to Aussie kids
These Canadian authors participated in the Quiz this year. Most of them are not known to Australian readers as yet - click on the links to find exciting new authors and terrific new books.
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