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2003
finalists.

2003 Hackmatack

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

What happens when three modern kids flash back in time and land on ancient Norse shores? The whole place goes to "runes"!

Join the Binkertons - twins Josh and Emma and their little sister, Libby - as they stumble into the Good Times Travel Agency and are carried off on a trip they'll never forget - to the Age of the Vikings. First the kids are stowaways on a Viking longship. Then the Berserker drags Josh along on a Viking raid. And Emma makes a plunder blunder that turns the siblings into slaves! Will the Binkertons' latest saga come to an untimely end?

Adventures with the Vikings is a rollicking mix of adventure and historical information about life in Scadinavia around 800 A.D. Did you know that Vikings sailed over oceans without the aid of charts or instruments? Or that they visited North American 500 years before Christopher Columbus? Find out about their runic alphabet, the Viking class system, government by "Thing" - and much more.

If you enjoyed this exciting exploit, you won't want to miss the Binkertons' previous Adventures in Ancient Egypt and Adventures in the Middle Ages!

Linda Bailey has written a dozen books for children, including three books about the Binkertons and the Arthur Ellis Award winning books How Can a Frozen Detective Stay Hot on the Trail?, How Can a Brilliant Detective Shine in the Dark? and Who’s Got Gertie? And How Can We Get Her Back! She won the 2001 Silver Birch Award for Adventures in the Middle Ages. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Suggested Activities

• Create a radio commercial for the Good Times Travel Agency.
• Write then and now comparisons or make a chart. Compare food, clothes, homes, transportation, etc.
• Research and draw your own Viking ship.
• Make a travel brochure or poster about the Vikings, giving prospective time travellers information about their destination.