Johnson County Library is pleased to announce that Cameron V. has won second place in the 8 and under age group for the Summer 2021 Youth Writing Contest with his piece "A Happy Jackalope, a Sneaky Werewolf, and the Scary Nightmare Moon."
Cameron (Cam) V. is a newly six-year old boy from Olathe, KS where he lives with his parents and their dog named Remus. At just two-years of age, Cam had memorized word-for-word over twenty of his favorite story books- all of which he can recite on demand to this day. His favorite author is Julia Donaldson, author of The Gruffalo, The Snail and the Whale, The Go Away Bird, and What the Lady Bird Heard. When he isn’t making up stories, Cameron loves to sculpt with play-doh, enjoys Roblox games, and he has recently learned how to play “Row Row Your Boat” and “Baby Shark” on the desk bells. Cameron loves all things dinosaur, his favorite being the stegosaurus, and he favors the color blue. Cam dreams of going to the African Savannah to see the animals. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up he says, “I want to be a nurse like my mommy.”
Long, long ago in a meadow in the wild west, there lived a beautiful family of jackalopes. A jackalope has two magical antlers and a bunny body, and a beautiful fluffy tail. Jackalopes eat grass and climb trees all day long. A baby jackalope is called a pip and the wild west was full of newly hatched pips..they jump, jump, jump out of pink eggs. Then came the day when a fierce fox with ten tails just came to the meadow looking for dinner. It was dawn because he hunts at dawn. His name was Nightmare Moon and he had one red glowing eye because he was so full of evil. Nightmare Moon was hungry, and his favorite food was… jackalope! The jackalopes heard the fox in the meadow with their long, long ears and ran and ran to protect their babies, but Nightmare Moon was faster than any jackalope. There was a chase and just as the fox was about to catch the jackalopes, they jumped over a tall wall of bricks. The jackalopes were slower runners, but they could jump higher than Nightmare Moon. That evil fox was so hungry for jackalopes and so he started to climb the brick wall. That’s when grandpa jackalope, his name was Phelix, used his big strong legs to jump over the wall and he just bumped Nightmare Moon off and they tumbled to the ground. The rumble of the earth woke up a sneaky werewolf who lived under the brick wall. The werewolf came out of his den and tried to eat Midnight Moon, but that fox snapped his teeth and hit that werewolf with his ten tails full of electric magic. He zapped that werewolf and sent him running far away. Then Nightmare Moon started after the jackalopes again. Grandpa jackalope, Phelix, had to protect his family and the pips from the fierce ten-tailed fox. Felix used his magical antlers to call the sun. Nightmare Moon only hunts at dawn when the sun is low. The high bright hot sun chased that evil fox all the way back to his den. The jackalopes were safe and happy and Nightmare Moon went to bed hungry.
The End.
