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2004
finalists.

2004 Hackmatack

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

The Bog Man had been stealing cattle all summer. At night he came out of the bog by the Ridge Road and slimed across the fields making slow gurgling noises. Then he chose the weakest of the cows - a calf, preferably, but he was strong enough to bring down a bull - and squeeze it by the neck with his long Bog Man fingers, injecting poison through his fingernails until the cow's bones were soup. Finally he would sink his terrible teeth into the base of the skull and drink out the animal, brain first, leaving only a shriveled sack of cowhide in the morning.

If the Bog Man got you, there was no escape. It was better to just hold your breath and hope he ate you quickly.

For Owen Skye, everyday life is full of danger and mystery. The deadly Bog Man lurks in the nearby fields, aliens send mysterious messages, and pesky girls practice being surgeons by trying to take out your liver with a butter knife. And then there's Sylvia, the girl with eyes like the summer sky made into a jewel. Thank goodness for Andy and Leonard. When life gets crazy, it's good to have brothers on your side!

Born in Ottawa, Alan Cumyn has lived in such far-flung places as Xuzhou, China and Salatiga, Indonesia. He is the author of many novels for adults, including Waiting for Li Ming, Between Families and the Sky, Man of Bone, Burridge Unbound, Losing It and The Sojourn, and the best-selling guide to work and study abroad, What in the World is Going On? This is his first book for children.

Thematic Links

• Humour
• Life with siblings
• Imaginary worlds

Suggested Activities

• Alan wrote the book to be read aloud. The chapters fit nicely into fifteen or twenty minutes and are mostly self-contained stories.
• Under NO circumstances are children to try out the activities listed in the book -- contacting alien spaceships, seeking out the Bog Man or his wife, crossing railway bridges on foot in dead of winter, constructing a fort on top of a garage door or visiting a haunted house!
• You can try writing adventrue stories though. Use your imagination!