Apartment 11 Productions is pleased to announce that David Acer’s book, GOTCHA! 18 Amazing Ways to Freak out Your Friends!, based on their popular series, Mystery Hunters, has just been nominated for a Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award.

The Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award is an Atlantic Canadian book award which allows children to choose their favourite Canadian and Atlantic Canadian books. This year, the children will read from a selection of forty books divided in four categories: English Fiction, English Non-fiction, French Fiction and French Non-fiction, chosen for their literary, cultural and enjoyment factors. The books have generally been published within two or three years of selection.

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced on May 8, 2009, in Halifax, NS. Every year, the Hackmatack Awards attract 350 reading groups with almost 8,000 young participants from schools, libraries, and groups from across the Atlantic provinces.

ABOUT THE HACKMATACK AWARDS

The Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award is a literary program designed for young readers in Atlantic Canada. Each year, thousands of children aged nine to twelve (grades four to 6) read from the selection of outstanding Canadian books and vote for the winners.

The Hackmatack Award was established with young readers in mind and serves to achieve the following objectives:

– to promote and advance reading and literacy among school-aged children in Atlantic Canada
– to participate in and promote a regional program in schools that will encourage young readers
– to foster the development and appreciation of writing in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, in both official languages, through a reading program
– to work with public libraries to encourage readers through a developed reading program
– to encourage a greater official public recognition of the work of Canadian writers

The Hackmatack Selection Committee nominates renowned Canadian books for young readers to the Hackmatack shortlist. For more information visit: www.hackmatack.ca

ABOUT GOTCHA! 18 Amazing Ways to Freak out Your Friends!

Written by David Acer (“Doubting Dave”) and illustrated by Stephen MacEachern, the book debunks some of the world’s oldest myths and mysteries and shows kids how they can re-create them to totally creep out their friends!

The book, complete with step-by-step magic tricks and stills from actual Mystery Hunters episodes, is published by Kids Can Press and is available in all major bookstores. It can also be purchased online at www.amazon.ca, www.chapters.indigo.ca, and on the Kids Can Press website. The book is available in the United States and can be purchased on www.amazon.com and other leading bookstores.

Mystery Hunters is currently in its fourth television season and is produced by Apartment 11 Productions in association with YTV, Discovery Network, and Discovery Kids and with the participation of the Shaw Rocket Fund.

GOTCHA! 18 Amazing Ways to Freak out Your Friends Does Bigfoot exist? Are crop circles made by aliens? Can dead bodies climb out of their graves and show up at your birthday party? Join Doubting Dave and the Mystery Hunters as they investigate some of the world’s oldest and coolest mysteries. Then learn how to re-create those mysteries YOURSELF to fool your friends!

– Make fake Big Foot prints in your own backyard
– Take phony UFO photos in your car
– Use an amazing illusion to turn yourself into a headless zombie
– Freeze your BFF in her tracks with a trick that looks like hypnosis

PLUS you’ll learn how to test your ESP, snap a fake ghost photo, bend a spoon with your brain and 9 other cool feats. AND teenage Mystery Hunters Araya and Christina will answer all your questions about ghosts, aliens, psychics, hypnotists, sea monsters, Bigfoot and more! Find out the truth while you freak out your friends then you can say GOTCHA!