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.
Barbara Kerley, Scholastic, ©2010, ISBN 978-0-545-12508-6
Spelling Mistakes
Mark Twain says his daughter’s spelling was frequently desperate.” Give students her spellings and ask them to spell them correctly—time them if you want to add some pressure. They need to add 5 seconds to their time for every word they still misspell.
Her incorrect words are: discribed incorectly, mustache, exept, extrordinary, sute, doute, Misouri, in good trimm, varius, chreatures (for creatures), expergate, donky, prosession.
This is a good time to mention that the first English dictionary was written in 9 years by one man, Samuel Johnson, and published in 1755. By contrast, the first French dictionary was written by an entire French Academy and published in 1694. It took 69 years to write. The first American dictionary was Noah Webster’s in 1806. After this spelling began to “solidify” into “correct” and “incorrect” spelling. Susy was writing in 1885.
A Book “In the Style Of”
This book has a particular style. For the most part it is a kind of story of Susy’s foray into biography. However, glued into place in the book are miniature foldout excerpts from Susy’s actual words. This is an excellent model to imitate.
In Social Studies it could take the form of a report on an explorer (for example) with inserted pages from his “diary” commenting on the events described on that page. In Science, it could be a report on a whale’s life cycle, with examples interspersed from the whale’s diary. In art, a research report on a particular artist could be written, with short imaginary diary inserts on occasion. Be sure that students realize the diary entries need only be 2-3 sentences long.
For 11 creative writing ideas, click The Extraordinary Mark Twain to download.
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.
Sage is home sick, but she is trying to continue with her vocabulary homework. It goes awry when she mistakes miscellaneous for Miss Alaineus. Her mother is holding a box with spaghetti hair on it when she mentions she needs “miscellaneous things” from which Sage concludes she is the woman on the box. When she defines it that way, the whole class laughs. Sage is devastated until she ends as Miss Alaineus, Queen of All Miscellaneous Things at the Vocabulary Parade. This book is full of charming puns and built in word definitions.
Diana Cruchley 