2023 Kids’ Choice KidLit Writing Contest

Oh boy! It’s here! The 2023 Kids’ Choice KidLit Writing Contest- created, hosted, and amazingly managed by Kailei Pew! My entry is below. Head on over to Kailei’s blog to sample some of the entries, or enjoy the chatter on Twitter!

WINSTON WANTS A HAT

All Winston ever wanted was a hat.

He thought it was a reasonable dream (it wasn’t like he was asking for a dinosaur).

Baseball cap, cowboy hat, he’d have been happy with any kind.

The problem was...

Winston had a tree growing right out the top of his head. 

Not a twig or a stick, mind you.

A bushy tree that attracted birds in the spring.

Sadly, Winston learned, no one made hats for kids with trees.

Winston tried designing his own hat.  [Many drawings of strange hats]

He drew visors to go round the front of his head, and enormous top hats to fit over the tree.

He tried filling the branches with lots of little hats, but decided he looked like an odd sort of Christmas tree.

Winston felt hopeless.

One day the boy next door asked, “Did you ever think of cutting it down?”

Winston hadn’t.  It felt strange to think about.  Would it hurt? Was a hat more important than his tree?

Yes, he decided, it was.

So Winston and his friend chopped down his little tree and Winston got a hat.

And never, not one day, not even for a minute,

Did Winston feel sorry.