A good story, however, Aunt Isabel explains, needs just the right ingredients – beginning with “a When and a Where.” With a lot of imaginative input from Penelope, Aunt Isabel helps her weave a perfect plot, complete with setting, characters (valiant Lady Nell, a captive prince, a villainous Odious Mole), conflict, suspense, and a satisfying ending. For ages 4- 8.
IDEAS AND STORY STARTERS
INSPIRING IMAGINATION
Of course, almost any book is an inspiration for the imagination. Finally winter comes, and as food stores run low and spirits droop, Frederick revives them all with his wonderful poems and stories filled with colorful images of the spring and summer. For ages 3 and up.
Invent your own story.) For ages 3 and up. |
And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street (Random House Books for Young Readers, 1.
Marco hasn’t seen anything on the way home from school but a horse and a wagon (“That can’t be my story. That’s only a start.”) – so he proceeds to add imaginative embellishments, each more fabulous than the last. Marco is a born writer. For ages 3- 8. |
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His story then spirals into an improbable (but cool) account of a kidnapping by cowboys and a barbecue threatened by a cattle stampede, in which “Kid Bleff” heroically saves the day. For ages 4- 8. |
Accused of lying, Henry is crushed, until he discovers how to channel his amazing imagination into writing stories. For ages 4- 8. |
Weslandia (Candlewick, 2.
Wesley – an ususual boy who dislikes pizza and refuses to shave half his head like all the other boys – spends his summer vacation creating a whole new civilization. Linden’s Library,” for example, shows a girl asleep with an open book, from which a leafy vine is now sprouting. He was sure he had seen the doorknob turn.”) For ages 4 and up. |
If zebras had stars and stripes. For ages 4 and up. |
Imagine a Night (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2. Imagine a Day (2. Imagine a Place (2. Ron Gonsalves, are wonderful inspirations for stories, as moonlit reflections of pine trees turn into ghostly girls with lanterns; a toy train becomes life- sized; and sunflowers have human faces.
Players draw two gold cards to create a main character – say, “royalty,” “gravedigger ,” “caretaker of an elephant,” or “pig” – and two copper- colored cards as story starters, such as “invitation from a stranger,” “burning house,” “handcuffs,” “pet is behaving strangely,” or “talking doll.” The challenge: to write, tell, or co- invent a story based on your cards. Thought- provoking and addictive for ages 1. Combinations of the objects serve as story starters. |
DISCOVERING VOICE
In writing, voice is more than the thing you use to talk, sing, and yell – it’s a unique expression of personality, the creative quirk that gives color and pizzazz to language.
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large mater – . For ages 8- 1. 1.
An exercise on diction, for example, begins with a quote from Virginia Hamilton’s M. C. Higgins the Great: “M. |