Writing Fairy Tales

Once Upon a Time: Writing Your Own Fairy Tale      By Nancy Lowen 

Picture Window Books        2009

Fairy and Folk Tale books are constantly in demand.  They are ideally situated to leverage students’ previous knowledge as they learn the elements of story structure. This provides a fertile ground for scaffolding students into authorship as they negotiate and play with how to apply story structure, elements, and conventions.

This book is  designed to provide the tools for second graders (my estimation) to begin to think like authors as they as they craft and arrange the building blocks of story elements to make their own creations.

The book uses “Red Riding Hood” as an example. It walks readers through the story while it points out the elements structure and features of fairy tales, and how they are applied in this case. The following elements are emphasized.

- Setting, characters, plot, and dialog

- The use of  warnings as a common convention in  fairy tales

- The use of magical elements

- Greed as a common theme in this genre 

- The use of tricks as a story convention

-Making the reader privy to a secret that the main character doesn’t know about.

- The use of repetition & of differing approaches to problem solving

- The convention of happy endings. (Here I would disagree with the author. She is  thinking in post Perrault terms. The original stories were quite, if you would excuse the pun, quite Grimm. Then again, what are you going to tell second graders?

                                                                                                    

The back section has a very, very brief section of tips on getting started in writing your own stories.

Of course this book sounds useful, but it handicaps itself by giving very limited options in terms of story creation. However, we all have imaginations that can easily reach beyond this handicap. This has the potential to translate into a powerful author’s experience for the kids as they extend beyond the strictures and structures of this book.

I feel that the greatest value of this book is in the template of story structure, elements, and conventions that it presents. Students can readily present ideas, concepts that go beyond the author’s treatment on creating your own stories.

Another ideal use would be to present this book to older students and have them recreate it for another genre. 

Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution

Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution   Steve Jenkins Houghton Mifflin 2002

I always love Steve Jenkins’ work. It is always interesting, engaging, and the art is invariably striking. Jenkins is a master of paper collage (both cut and torn) illustrations.

This book features a great introduction to the topic that is extremely friendly to younger students. It starts at the basic level of distinguishing between living and non-living things, and then it builds up to a greater complexity.

There is a brief history of life on earth from single celled organisms to small invertebrates, and then to fish with backbones. Then the story progresses from the colonization of land by plants and animals to the appearance of Homo Sapiens.

From there, the author introduces some of the ideas, concepts, and questions that began to cast doubt on the idea that life forms are static. Then he explores some of the factors of Darwin’s Galapagos experience that lead him to his theory.

Jenkins’ art is put to superb use in his explanation of natural selection at work. The images make the concept easy to understand while simultaneously providing lots of detail – all in a concise and visually arresting way that takes up only two pages.

An illustration of a frog lays 3000 eggs. Only 200 of these are not eaten by other animals. Of these 200 that hatch, only 10 make it past the tadpole stage to become frogs.

Once these fortunate 10 frogs have traversed to Jenkins’ second page panel,  they must then negotiate a gauntlet of fish, fate, birds, snakes, and a fox (all lovingly illustrated by Jenkins) to survive. By the time the frogs get to the other side of the page, there are only two left, and in making the journey across the artwork, the distinctive adaptations that allowed them to survive are highlighted.

This book also excels in its presentation of the role of variation and mutation in evolution. Once again, the information is enhanced by the fact the artist has a talent for using his artistic skill to present complexity in an easy to understand manner.

Animalia

Animalia         By Grame Base Puffin Books         1986

I must confess; I love alphabet books. There are many great examples of this format, and it seems that I run into notable specimens on a regular basis. However, the ones that resonate the most with me are those that feature some sort of added value – a hook that introduces a multilayered complexity can engage older readers as well.

This is simply my most favorite alphabet book of all time. The concept is simple, but the execution is incredibly complex.

Each letter of the alphabet gets a panel that features an alliterative phrase. An example of such would be “Ingenious iguanas improvising an intricate impromptu on impossibly impractical instruments”

An imaginative illustration accompanies each phrase, and contained within each are dozens of objects that begin with the featured letter. Some are exceedingly easy to identify, while others take a bit more sophistication to make the connection.  Very often, you find yourself searching your vocabulary to find alternative names for objects in order to connect them with the letter in question.

Additionally, there are many layers of nuance. Some are just plain obscure. For example, the illustration for “K” contains a British WW1 recruitment poster. Only if you were familiar with British History of that period would you get the connection. The face on the poster was that of Lord Kitchner.

Although matters can get rather sophisticated, there is a tremendous wealth of easily identifiable objects that kindergarteners will have no trouble in connecting to the letters.

This book is extraordinarily well thought out. The author spent three years working on the 26 illustrations, and on refining the wit and whimsy of the content.

This book unfolds like a game, and it works best if you project the illustrations on a large screen so that people can participate as a group.

I am also excited about the prospect of using this book as a vocabulary development tool.

The Great Migration

The Great Migration: An American Story  

Paintings By Jacob Lawrence       Harper Trophy Books     1995

This book collects the entire series of 60 paintings that constitutes Jacob Lawrence’s stunningly iconic Great Migration series.

Jacob Lawrence created this exhibit as a young man. He was 22 when he started painting the series in 1940, and he completed the 60 paintings over the course of a year. As part of the exhibit, Jacob Lawrence wrote a narrative that describes, links, and unifies the paintings in order to explain the subject.

Utterly fantastic! This book is perfect for introducing the great migration. The art and the narrative combine to provide a surprising amount and depth of information for such a sparse format.

This book pairs extraordinarily well with some of the other outstanding  picture books that treat the Great Migration. “God Bless the Child” and “I, Too, Am, America” immediately come to mind.

Additionally, this book is a fantastic example of sequential art, and how it can be used to tell a story, frame a narrative, and depict events. I think this book would be invaluable in this respect as well.

You can look at the book as a guide on how to format student art that accompanies student generated stories, personal narratives, instructional text assignments, etc.

Also, I think that an interesting exercise would be to use this book in a comparative study with graphic novels. One could compare & contrast, find similarities & differences, and figure out the defining features of the format and how it works to tell a story.

Panorama: A Fold Out Book

Panorama: A Fold Out Book       Fani Marceau & Joelle Jolivet

Abrams Books For Young Readers 2007

This is a very impressive book that illustrates habitats around the world through gorgeous woodcut style art. The edges of each panel shares some commonalities with its adjacent neighbors. The result blends together seamlessly, yet each panel shows a distinct location in the world.

There is a huge variety of habitats and localities depicted in the 18 accordian style panels that comprise this book. When completely unfurled, the book extends to 15 feet. As you can imagine, this book makes an impressive read aloud. The effect is always sensational.

I find this book ideal for introducing different habitats to students, especially in conjunction with classroom study of the topic. One can use the art to tease out some of  fundamental similarities of different parts of the world in terms of types of habitats. Additionally, the art allows opportunities to share background knowledge while simultaneously gleaning new details.

Once all of the panels have been unfurled, you can flip the entire structure around in order to show what each location looks like at night.

This book is extremely sparse in terms of text. It has about the same proportion of text to image as you would find with photos and their captions. Therefore, it is not intended to provide depth and detail. It does excel, however, as an introduction for younger students, and it makes a fantastic read aloud. 

I use this book for grades K-3