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2004
finalists.

2004 Hackmatack

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

What happens when three modern kids set their sights on the future but get trapped in the past? A mess of Olympian proportions!

Join the Binkertons, twins Josh and Emma and their little sister, Libby, as they head to the Good Times Travel Agency hoping to visit the next Olympic Games - but end up in anicent Greece instead! First the kids take a walking tour of Athens. Then they meet up with a group of Spartans. But when Libby decides to take a chariot for a ride, the commotion she causes leads to mass confusion. With the Greeks hot on their trail, it's going to take a truly heroic effort for the Binkertons to make it home again...

Adventures in Ancient Greece is an exciting mix of adventure and historical information about life in Greece in the fifth century B.C. Did you know that athletes at the ancient Olympic Games competed in the nude? Or that a Greek column is designed with a bulge in the middle to make it look straight when seen from a distance? Find out about the Greek gods, the birt of democracy, Greek home life - and much more.

Born in Winnipeg, Linda Bailey is the author of the 2003 Hackmatack-nominated non-fiction book Adventures With The Vikings. She writes two series for Kids Can Press: the Stevie Diamond books and the Good Times Travel Agency books. She lives in Vancouver.

This year, Bailey's What's a Serious Detective Like Me Doing in Such a Silly Movie has also been nominated for a Hackmatack Award (for English Fiction).

Thematic Links

• Time travel
• Ancient civilizations
• Olympics, democracy, theatre
• Greece
• Spartans
• Famous Greeks

Suggested Activities

• Create a board game for Adventures in Ancient Greece, using other board games as examples.
• Cook a Greek meal. Research food eaten in ancient Greece and modern Greece.
• Do a TV interview 'live from ancient Greece'. Have students role-play the three Binkertons.
• Create a travel poster for ancient Greece that would look good on the walls of the Good Times Travel Agency.
• Write and draw a 'postcard home' from ancient Greece as if you were there with the Binkertons.
• Hold a mini-Olympics, with sports, spelling or Greek trivia.