Fu is planting rice and is bored enough not to be doing it well, in neat rows. When he is rebuked, he throws a rice plant out of the paddy into the path of the warrior, Chang. The insulted warrior challenges him to a duel. Fu finds the sword Master and asks for help in getting ready. Through the night, all the Master does is teach him how to make and pour tea – with Purpose, Flow, and Patience. When Fu faces Chang in the morning he faces him with a teapot and suggests a pot of tea. Chang’s followers laugh at the boy, but Chang says, “There’s always time for tea.”
John Rocco, Disney-Hyperion Books, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4231-0965-5
Similes That Matter
Purpose, Flow, and Patience are the three lessons Fu must learn. To that end, there are three important similes in this story:
- Just as a bamboo grows upward to reach the sun—you must have purpose.
- Like a stream that flows from the mountain to the valley, the tea must flow from you to the cup.
- Just as a caterpillar patiently waits in its cocoon to become a butterfly, you too must be patient.
Writing a Trailer
Just as movies have trailers to be shown in movie theatres and on TV, so does John Rocco (who has worked for Disney) constructed two wonderful “movie” trailers for his books, Fu Finds the Way and MoonPowder. Talk with students about what a trailer does: gives you a hint of the movie, tries to get you excited about seeing it, doesn’t give away the plot, etc.
These are the total number of words for the trailer for Fu Finds the Way:
- A story of a distracted boy
- A mighty warrior
- And a duel
- The Teacher who trains him
- And the pot of tea that saves him
- Fu Finds the Way
Ask students to work in pairs to write a trailer for each other’s most recent published story. Ask students to read them out to the class to see which trailers can drum up the most interest in reading the story without giving the plot away completely.
For 8 creative writing ideas, click Fu Finds the Way to download.
Henrietta loves to read and has hardly any time to lay eggs. The farmer says he is sending all the rest of the hens on a vacation as a reward for their hard work. As they leave, Henrietta reads the words on their truck which say, “ Souper Soup Company” and realizes her friends are headed for the soup. Along the road to rescue them she hitchhikes pigs and cows. At the factory she reads the signs in the hallways to find the chickens, reads the code to find the address, and, after the rescue, finally discovers in a magazine a vegetarian farm where they can live.
This fractured fairy tale begins after “Meredith” marries Rumpelstiltskin instead of the king and they have a daughter, Hope. Occasionally Rumpelstiltskin spins some gold and Hope takes it to the village. On hearing of it, the king captures her and demands she spin gold. She says she is not sure, but believes her grandfather did it with wheat. So it is planted across the kingdom. The peasants are happy, but the king still wants gold. Next, they try gold wool—again, the peasants are happy, but the king wants gold. Eventually, Hope becomes Prime Minister and, whenever the king becomes anxious, she takes him on a goodwill tour of his now happy kingdom.
A wonderful retelling of the Aesop fable where the fox makes frequent attempts to get at the grapes until he finally says that they are probably sour anyway. Hence the expression “sour grapes”.
Huckleberry Finn tells, in his own voice, of the life of his author Mark Twain, a.k.a Samuel Clemens.
This is the story of fishermen who are caught in a huge wave that deposits a baby into their arms. He grows up uncertain as to where he comes from or who his real parents are. A fish promises to help him answer his questions. When the boy finally becomes scared, the fish turns into a dragon and says that Naoki now knows that his “real” parents are the ones that raised him.
Ralph Raccoon is too polite and too nice. His parents have to send him to Bandit School to learn to be a proper bad raccoon. How does Ralph use his “niceness” to succeed?
The Being Bad Alphabet
Annie Taylor was the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, the first to survive, the first woman for over 95 years, and the only woman to do it alone. This is her story – the story of a woman over 60 years of age who did an amazing thing.
The pea under the mattress writes a memoir of his attempt to help the prince find a “real princess.” Eventually the gardener’s girl who raised the pea lies on the twenty mattresses and he whispers, “You are very uncomfortable,” in her ear all night. She repeats this to the queen in the morning and marries the prince. The pea lives on in the royal museum.
The story of Hansel and Gretel as told by Gretel, in her own voice and with her point of view. A very clever pop-up story—and a potential model for student pieces.
Diana Cruchley 