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2003
finalists.

2003 Hackmatack

Children's Choice Book Award/Prix littéraire - le choix de jeunes

The day Olsa and Bashkim opened their doors to a small brown-and-white-striped cat named Mishka, they opened their hearts too. But the rather ordinary happiness of their lives was threatened as the war in Kosovo grew nearer. Forced to leave their home and their homeland, they gathered all their courage and the few things they simply could not leave behind - some family photographs and Mishka. Lika many others, Olsa, Bashkim and Mishka set out to find safety, journeying first to Macedonia, then finally far across the world to Canada. But no one at the receiving centre in Greenwood, Nova Scotia would have guessed that of the more than two thousand immigration cards issued for the refugees, one would be for a small brown-and-white-striped cat - the cat from Kosovo.

Mary-Jane Hampton was born in Scotland and moved to Canada at age five. Her profession as a health planner has taken her to Ontario, Nova Scotia, and around the world. Today, she lives in Stillwater Lake, just outside of Halifax, where she shares a house in the woods with her dogs, cats and a parrot, who enjoy curling up (or perching) in her office while she writes. Mary-Jane Hampton is the author of To Honduras With Love from Holly Drive School, also from Nimbus Publishing.

Tamara Thiebaux Heikalo is a landed immigrant from the United States. She has studied at the Ontario College of Art and at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, and has exhibited in groups and solo shows in both public and private galleries. She lives and works in Nova Scotia. She also illustrated the children's books When Heaven Smiled On Our World and Goldilocks & The Three Bears (Fitzhenry & Whiteside) and A Christmas Crisis (Hamboyan Publishing).

Suggested Activities

• Make a map and follow the path from Kosovo to Canada. What countries and bodies of water do you cross?
• If you had to flee from your home, make a list of what you would take.
• Discuss conflict resolution including anti-bullying techniques.