Our illustrator is racing through the book trying to tell the story of a pie-loving king who has imprisoned his stepdaughter. He will only release her when a suitor kills the dragon. We, “the readers”, are reading too fast for the illustrator to keep up. This results in emergency art substations that detour our plot.
Ian Lendler, Simon and Schuster, ©2005, 0-689-86677-1
Writing to the Model
Students could imitate the model of this book. In this story, as it proceeds, the reader catches up to the illustrator who has to compromise and thus affects the story. The author increasingly frantically begs the reader to slow down, to no avail. The separation between what the author is writing and what the author is saying is made by a change of font. When the students are writing, it could be accomplished by highlighting what the author says to the reader in yellow – which can easily be read through, but shows that the author is speaking in his/her “real” voice. The student plot cannot depend on illustrations, but rather on interruptions due to “fast reading.”
A good idea is to start by brainstorming the kinds of problems an author/illustrator could have in writing;
- running out of ink.
- can’t write as fast as you can read.
- including conversation really slows down the writing.
- writer’s block.
- writer’s cramp, etc.
The next step is for students to outline the real story they want to tell, because they will be interrupting themselves and will want to remember where they are going. The final step is to start to write. The teaching ideas PDF contains a sample for students of the beginnings of a story.
Journal Ideas
It’s always valuable to use a picture book as a prompt to journal writing. Try to have at least three choices so that students can select the one about which they think they can write the most, or if they run out of steam, can write on a second topic as well. Some possibilities are:
- times you have been interrupted when you are trying to do something.
- speaking to a group.
- a time when a project did not go well.
For 4 creative writing ideas, click An Undone Fairy Tale to download.
Night Flight has few words. It concentrates on just 14 hours and 56 minutes of time, starting in the evening from Harbour Grace in Newfoundland on May 20th, 1932, and ending in Ireland. The author recreates the experience in vivid descriptive language of what she had to do to stay awake, storms, failure of equipment, flying through the night. The author also describes what is seen from the plane as she left, during the night, flying over tundra, approaching land in Ireland. Imagine the Irish farmer coming toward this strange vehicle that had landed in his field, and the woman waving and saying, “I’ve come from America.” Amazing.
The author’s child learns in school that the Wright Brothers invented flight. Her Brazilian husband says, “No they didn’t. It was Alberto Santos-Dumont”.
The author begins by presenting us with his character, Chloe, and asks the illustrator to menace her with a lion. The illustrator thinks it should be a dragon, which starts the quarrel. The illustrator torments the author sufficiently that the author fires him, and, in fact the lion the second illustrator creates eats him. Unfortunately, the second illustrator is really bad and finally Chloe and the author agree that they need to apologize to our first illustrator. They phone him, inside the lion’s stomach, and eventually he, the author, and Chloe become reunited.
This is the story of Mark Twain’s life in picture book form, with accompanying anecdotes from Susy who is writing this memoir so we can meet the “real” Mark Twain. Susy, Mark Twain’s favourite daughter, did keep a memoir of observations of her dad for a short period of time, and excerpts from it are included as little fold out pages. She talks about their home, his writing process and the role her mom plays, his leisure activities, and much more.
James advises his younger brother on the 10 things you must not do if you ride the school bus. They range from not sitting at the front, not sitting at the back, not making eye contact with the bully, to not touching the bully’s stuff, not sitting with a girl, and finally to not talking to the bus driver. During the course of the day, his brother inadvertently breaks all 10. But he discovers that things work out and makes a rule 11—you don’t have to pay attention to the rules.
Ed Young is well known for his picture books. The House Baba Built is more in the nature of a memoir of his childhood in the house his father built in Shanghai in which the family lived during World War II. We learn about the war, school, family activities in the house, taking in refugees including a Jewish family, food shortages, being unable to fill the pool…all through his eyes as a child. You can take just a part of this book for a rich study of many different topics.
Philipe Petit was always challenged to walk the tightrope in as many difficult places as possible. As the twin towers were going up in New York in 2001 he determined that he would have to walk before it was finished and occupied. He organized friends, snuck in the ropes and rigging he would need with friends, suspended the rope and then he walked out into the wind. He walked, danced, ran, knelt, and even lay down on the rope. When arrested he was sentenced to perform for students in Central Park. The book ends poignantly with the shadows of the towers after the attack on September 11, 2001.
Bridget’s loves to draw and is inspired by her beret. Unfortunately one day the beret blows away, and Bridget resorts to many other types of hats. None of them is inspiring. She is suffering from “painters block” until one day her friends who are opening a lemonade stand need a sign.. Bridget makes a series of signs (in the style of Whistler’s Mother, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Andy Warhol’s Tomato Soup etc.). Her signs are viewed as an outdoor exhibit as passers by purchase lemonade at the “refreshment stand.” Of course, it ends with Bridget re-inspired to paint. This book also includes 2 pages of How to Start Your Art.
At the Paw and Claw restaurant it is lunch and Mr. Maxwell wants to celebrate his promotion with something special. He orders the headwaiter, Clyde to bring him a live mouse instead. When Clyde asks “Would you like us to kill it for you?” Mr. Maxwell replies, “That won’t be necessary.”
Diana Cruchley 