Kids' author Kenneth Oppel gets scary greeting from 6th graders at Edgewater Elementary

There was a creepy buzzing sound emanating from Natalie Randle's grade six classroom at Edgewater Elementary School in Pincourt one day last week.

6:56Edgewater Elementary grade 6ers get visit from The Nest author Kenneth Oppel

Homerun writer-broadcaster Amanda Klang meets the winners of this year's CBC Montreal TD Kids Book Club contest.

Inside, the students sat immobile, their faces covered by black masks.

They were waiting for a visit from Kenneth Oppel, the bestselling Canadian kids and young adult (YA) author.

They gave him a scary surprise.

The students are winners of the 2016 CBC Montreal TD Kids Book Club contest.

Each year, CBC Montreal's Homerun partners with the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award and picks a nominated book.

Then Montreal-area elementary schools submit contest entries, vying to be the class that wins copies of the book and a visit from the author.

This year, the book was Oppel's The Nest.

Here's how Randle's class answered this year's contest question: Why should kids read scary stories?

Dear CBC Scary Stories Contest,

Can you sleep at night?  Do you like the dark? Can you stay home alone at night?  Let's change that!  It's time for you to start reading some scary stories!  

The students in Mrs. Randle's Grade 6 class at Edgewater Elementary, think kids should read scary stories because they keep readers turning pages and wanting to read more and more.... Also because reading scary stories can help kids face their fears and be more brave.

We also think that after reading scary stories, kids will become hooked on this genre of books and want to discover different authors.  This can help kids read more and improve their skills, by reading something they enjoy!

We were inspired by this contest and are currently writing our own scary stories that we hope to share with Mr. Oppel! You don't want to miss out on coming to visit this terrifyingly creative Grade 6 class!  

The plot

Illustrated by Jon Klassen, The Nest is a story about an anxious boy named Steven.

• CBC Books on Kenneth Oppel's The Nest

Steven believes that the wasps he meets in his dreams will save his sick baby brother.  But those wasps don't turn out to be as friendly as he thinks.

Steven realizes those wasps want to replace his sick brother with a new one: a perfect baby who will never get sick, lonely or scared.

And when Steven has second thoughts, the wasps get mad.

Here's how some of the grade six students at Edgewater Elementary responded to reading The Nest:

Deven Tetley: scared for Steven

Deven Tetley

8 years ago

Duration 0:47

Deven Tetley worried the protaganist in Kenneth Oppel's The Nest wouldn't survive.

"I felt very scared for how Steven would fare, because when he's been trapped, and his body is lying unconscious in the bathtub, it seems like he won't make it."

Mark Francescini: shocked

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"I was shocked by what happened near the end."

Nolan Beauregard-Jackson: getting a thrill

"I like reading scary stories. I like to get the thrill. I like to be scared a lot around this time of year."

Ciara Woods: being like other kids

[On being normal:] "I think kids especially think about that a lot: what others think of them and their differences. If someone is slower in class, they think they're not normal, like other kids."

"Steven wanted to be normal, but I got how he felt 'cause ... kids feel that sometimes. You always want to be like the other kids, you want to be normal, you want to do things like the other kids."

On being normal: Oppel's take

• Kenneth Oppel on his YA thriller The Nest, where normal is scary

The author of The Nest shared the personal experience that he said helped him to understand what this story was about — and what he wanted to say.

"When my third child was born 11 years ago, she had Down syndrome," Oppel said. "I realized she would be outside what people think about as normal."

"Then I thought about things about me that people think are weird or weak."

"In the end, I thought, there's no such thing as normal, and that's something I wanted to communicate."

Homerun5:57Children's author Kenneth Oppel meets winners of 2016 CBC Montreal TD Kids Book Club

Each year, CBC Montreal's Homerun partners with the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award and picks a nominated book. CBC's Amanda Klang met with the author and kids.

Juliana Laserra: a big thumbs up

Juliana Laserra

8 years ago

Duration 1:01

Juliana Laserra highly recommends Kenneth Oppel's The Nest.

"I just felt so many emotions and feelings [reading The Nest] that I had to read more."

"It was a really good book…. I recommend it."