There is a leaf. I must chase. Got it!
As a stone garden dog I don't feel the cold and I don't mind if nobody feeds me. I like a good run, but I can get that by bounding around the garden when nobody's looking. Except Her. She doesn't count. The Sunshines were here this weekend (wowowowow!!) but they understand about stone dogs running around.
She was out in the garden yesterday with Lady Sunshine and she said she wanted to plant a tree. What sort of tree? I think she's planting a story tree.
That's where stories come from. You plant an idea. That's a story seed. Some of them don't come up. Some of them come up and go all thin and scrawny and die. Some of them come up quickly, but most of them take a while to grow strong, and get different branches and leaves, and finally you get a story. Usually she has to choose which branches to keep and which ones to cut off, to keep the story strong. She's growing a story tree just now and it grew really quickly, then it did something unexpected and now she has to think of which branches to keep. But she likes this story. It's got a dog in it, like me, except not a stone one.
People often ask her where her ideas come from. She doesn't like that question. Ideas don't come from anywhere, they are just there, around you, at the end of your nose, in your garden. What matters is whether your idea grows into a strong tree or not.
If you have a story tree with branches and you cut some off, they are no longer branches. They are sticks. What do we do with sticks? We chase them! Oh, wow!
6 comments:
I'm sharing this post with my class today. We just finished a unit in which I used the author Donald Crews to show how stories can come from anywhere. He goes walking in the city with a notebook and a sketchbook to "find stories." His books are great, and the illustrations are simple, but incredibly engaging (You can find stories within his pictures that have not yet been told).
Speaking of stories, I started Urchin of the Riding Stars this week with my class. Children from past years asked if they could skip their recess to come hear the beginning of the story, and they have passed on to my current class that Mistmantle will be what they talk about for years to come when they talk about being in second grade. It felt good to open that book again...like I was reuniting with old friends. I will let you know how our journey progresses.
Yet again, I am honoured. It is so exciting to be engaging with whole classes of children far away. It is the stuff of stories.
Could you message me via the site? I might be able to sort out some red squirrel pictures for your students.
I sent you an email through your website. My students were excited to know that I wrote to you. Your letter hangs on our autograph wall - autographs from local celebrities (news anchors, musicians, and Mickey Mouse) that were sent to our class. Students from last year stop to read it often, and love that they were compared to their literary heroes.
Thanks, I got your e-mail. Funnily enough I haven't seen a Little Red since I moved back to Northumberland, but no doubt I will before long. They are smaller than the greys, more agile and just so pretty.
When you're reading a story aloud, delivery is all. You must be a brilliant storyteller.
It would be interesting to hear the characters in the way you imagined them as opposed to the way I imagined them. Brother Fir, for example, sounds a little like Yoda. Urchin sounds like a kid, very lively. Gleaner sounds like she's from Beverly Hills (very snobby). Apple...well...I don't know how to describe Apple's voice. She sounds like the actress Theresa Merritt. Loud, over the top, and always smiling.
Oh, this whole thread is wonderful! And I do love Dodger.
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