It's so great to be back to this school, which was the very first school I visited as a children's book author and illustrator. That was a long time ago. I've been to a ton of schools since then, but I've always wanted to come back. I'm sure glad I got this chance today to work with some great, imaginative kids. Check out these stories:
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The four ingredients: a phone operator in a playground looking for a hillbilly up against a guy who eats phone lines
The story: first, let me say that a phone operator is a fantastic main character. Love that! She's trying to start phone service for a remote part of West Virginia and gets a local guy to help her get service.
Why the playground? It's the only open space in the mountains. But there's another local resident who doesn't want there to be phone service.
What a crazy combination!
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In addition to all the free material on this site, I have downloadable books that are perfect for keeping kids writing in school or at home!
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The Adventures of Pirate Dog
Picture prompts are a great way to inspire kids to write! Here are 26 of my best drawings with fun, pre-writing worksheets
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Write Your Own
Cartoons!
Kids can add the
dialogue and their special touches to my funny comic strips filled with wacky characters!
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Sparks: Year One
Here’s a fantastic resource for teachers: a whole year of weekly creative writing lessons built around wacky holidays!
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Workshop stories
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Do you know why we ended up with a popsicle stick in the hand of this doodle kid on the right? Because I added one too many fingers to his hand when my doodle assistant was finished! But that mistake created the small part that made our story interesting.
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This boy has found a popsicle stick that seems to be communicating to him. Apparently aliens are using the stick to try to brainwash him to help them.
The boy has a sister that is out for revenge for all the tricks he's played on her. So she snatches the stick and tries to destroy it. Well, she TRIES to destroy it! It is one tough popsicle stick -- even in the teeth of the dog! We had fun thinking of ways she could try to get rid of the stick.
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This story had a wonderful central concept: a bed that would pull a boy into other worlds when he falls asleep. This boy wants to end the bed's magic, so he tries to seal off the hole with his magic blanket, but in this picture we can see a creature that is trying to enter from that world into this one!
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Evil bunnies from another dimension! Scary and yet so funny!
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Here's another story in which the main character gets sucked into a dangerous place. In this story, it's the Lair of the Rock Monster -- under the sand at a beach, where a monster is keeping its rock collection. The man collects rocks too.
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To escape, he distracts the monster with one of his own precious stones while he tries to figure out which one of the identical rocks on the wall will open up the way out!
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A girl has an interesting shirt. It has a map that will lead her through her school to a treasure hidden there long ago. But she can't read the map. Only the night custodian can do that. So she sneaks in and follows his directions.
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She doesn't know that she's being followed by the most popular girl in the school. She wants to make sure our hero won't find the treasure and become the talk of the town.
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with Bruce Van Patter
