Contests

New Poetry Contest: Wish

What are you wishing for this holiday season? For a festive Thanksgiving feast at your grandparents’ house with all your cousins? Maybe for an early snowfall so you can go sledding with friends? Or perhaps a special gift you have been longing for? The holiday season is a time of wishes made and, often, fulfilled. For this month’s contest, everybuggy wishes to enjoy your best poem about a wish.

Will you write about someone who is magically granted their dearest wish, like Jenny and her cats in “Three Wishes”? Maybe you will imagine people in need whose wish is unexpectedly fulfilled—like the wish of Agnes and Ernest to avoid the orphanage in “The Knocker-Uppers,” or the wish of a hungry stranger to share a meal and home, like Adam in “The Miracle Cracker Latkes.” Perhaps you will compose a wish list for the holidays—of presents you wish to give or receive; or for a perfect holiday with all the family traditions you remember; or your best wishes of joy and peace for people around the world. You might even write about the holiday wishes of a kitten or mouse.

Whether you are wishing to find a genie’s magic lamp, or to ride a flying carpet, to save the environment, or just for Christmas or Kwanza or Hanukkah to come sooner, everybuggy will be waiting to have their wishes fulfilled by receiving your best poem—of 24 lines or less, please—about whatever you wish.

  • (Show Rules)
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    1. Your contest entry must be your very own original work. Ideas and words should not be copied.

    2. Your entry must be signed by your parent or guardian, stating that it is your own work, that no help was given, and that Cricket has permission to publish it in the magazine and on our website. 

    3. Be sure to include your name, age, and full address on your entry.

    4. Only one entry per person, please.

    5. If you want your work returned, enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope for each entry.

    6. Your entry must be received by November 25, 2022.

    7. Send entries to Cricket League, P.O. Box 300, Peru, IL 61354. (No faxes or email submissions, please!)

    8. We will publish winning entries in the March 2023 issue and on the Cricket website.