There are a lot of things to be positive about these days: the start of baseball season, spring, gardens growing, summer approaching, and so on.
But I'm not interested in talking about those subjects.
I'd rather talk about my daughter's excellent second grade teacher and a book.
One of the major projects for my daughter's class this year is students writing and illustrating their own books. This teacher knows her stuff. She worked her students through the writing process. Since I volunteer every Thursday to tutor and then eat lunch with my daughter, I got to see little snapshots of the progress of these project and how her teacher guided them through the writing process, which entailed rough drafts, mandatory revisions, peer review, and polishing their books for presentation.
My daughter wrote a tale that involves a princess; a dognapping; villains named Tim, Quinn, and Bob; dragons; nefarious intent; true love; hula dancing; and plot twists.
If you're interested in reading the full story, it's after the jump. The numbers indicate page numbers, but you're missing the illustrations. I wanted to provide some shots of some of the pages; however, our digital camera doesn't want to communicate with my laptop for whatever reason.
The Mixed-Up Fairy Tale
2) Once upon a time, there lived a pretty princess! She had a dog. She loved that dog so much she even kissed it on the head.
And then... POOF!!! The dog vanished.
3) She was so sad that everybody in the kingdom gave their doges to the princess, but she wanted her dog instead of their dogs!
The king did not know what to do. The princess stayed in her room for a very long time.
4) The next day three boys were outside her window, and they had her dog...
dum! dum! dum!
Their names were Bob, Quinn, and Tim. The boys said they would give her dog back if she did what they asked. The princess did not know what to do!
They boys said, "WE PROMISE!" but the boys crossed their fingers!!
5) Back in the kingdom, the king checked on his daughter but when he opened the door, she was gone!! The king was so shocked he even fainted! The queen saw the king on the floor! She fainted, too!!
6) Meanwhile... the princess was with the boys. They told the princess to go in a dragon's cave with the dragon in it! She did as they asked and went into the cave! She was so scared! She walked and walked and walked and then she stopped! She saw the dragon that was sleeping.
7) She got so scared that she screamed! She woke the dragon! She ran and ran until finally she stopped. It was weird because the dragon didn't chase her!
She thought and thought and thought, and then she got it! She knew why the dragon didn't chase her!
8) The dragon was lonely and wanted a friend, so the princess became his friend!
9) The boys were waiting and Bob said, "Is she dead?"
Quinn said, "Be quiet!"
But Tim said, "I am the leader of this group!"
The boys started to fight!
10) Back in the cave, the princess (oh, and by the way, her name was Alex... but back to the story!)
So the princess and the dragon are friends now. The dragon let the princess ride on his back! They flew out of the cave. The boys were still fighting and didn't even notice them!
11) The princess yelled out loud, "Hey boys!"
The boys saw the princess and the dragon, and they started to chase them. They got tired, though, and started to hula dance!
They saw three beautiful girls and said, "Mamacita!"
12) The beautiful girls smacked the boys. The boys said, "Me-ouch!"
The boys decided to start chasing the princess and the dragon again.
13) The dragon got really tired and stopped at a house--A BIG house! It had a prince. He fell deeply in love. They started to go on adventures together. They started to see Tim, Bob, and Quinn again and again and again! So they stopped being adventurers with the dragon.
14) The prince loved the princess, but he didn't tell her! The princess loved the prince, but she didn't tell him, but they told the dragon! The dragon got so confused, he passed out! The prince and the princess raced to their friend. The got so worried... they started to worry A LOT!
He woke up again!
15) And soon, Fluffy the dragon found true love, and he got married and had kids. Their kids' names were Fluff and Flufferina.
The prince and princess finally said they loved each other, and soon they got married and had kids. Their kids' names were Percy and Cat.
16) About the Author
I hope you like my story! I was eight years old when I wrote this story.
I bet you are wondering about the three boys. They three boys got married. They gave the princess' dog back.
P.s. The three boys are the ones who took her dog. When the three boys got married, though, they got nicer!
3 comments:
This is a better story than I've read in some of my classes. Love the surrealist twists it takes midway through. Mamacita!
I'll pass on the compliments to the author. I'm especially fond of the hula dancing. The whole book is sort of fairy tale meets Blazing Saddles.
We were charmed and impressed by the text and illustrations, which Mike and I were lucky enough to see in situ. That Hannah is one smart cookie. This tome really demonstrates the breadth of her reading and her imagination. But I was particularly impressed by the attention to detail and the quality of her "second thoughts" about what's going on here.
I'm making a mental list of books this kid needs to read, sooner or later. Harriet the Spy is on this list...but not quite yet. Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men is also on this list, and if there's a long drive coming up, I recommend the audio book, which is beautifully and hilariously read.
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