Frances A. Karnes

This is not a bad book. There are many contests in here which my daughter is very excited to enter, and particularly if you are a teacher, or run an afterschool program, this good be a great source of activity to fill your days - and your kids might even win something in the process! As a parent, though, I found that it made me miss another book, All the Best Contests for Kids, which is now very out-of-date. What All the Best did better is that it was not solely academically focused. There were all sorts of contests, from the poster making and essay writing which you get in vast quantity in this book, to things like double dutch, or sandcastle building, or watermelon seed spitting, which are solely for fun. I think it is indicative of our society that we now feel like we have to have some grand social purpose to everything - as if we've all read Dickens' Hard Times and took it as a blueprint for life rather than a social criticism. This book is not without merit. But where does a kid go to learn about a seed-spitting contest these days?… (más)

A good resource for academic and creative competitions for children of all ages. Competition listings are clear and concise, and feel fairly comprehensive. A competition journal section with prompts for choosing a competition and ways to keep track of deadlines is helpful and unique.

My one major criticism of this book is the lack of an index by age group. This means that you have to flip through each of the 150 entries to determine which are relevant to your specific child, classroom, or other group.… (más)