WRITING CRAFT USING THREE BOOKS WITH GREAT ILLUSTRATIONS FOR INSPIRATION

Rylant, C. When I was young in the mountains. New York: Penguin Books

Say, A. (1993). Grandfather’s journey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Yolen, J. (1987). Owl moon. New York: Philomel Books.

Rylant, C. When I was young in the mountains. New York: Penguin Books

SUMMARY/PLOT

When I Was Young in the Mountains is an old-fashioned story about a young girl and her brother growing up in the Appalachian Mountains with their grandparents. The book is about simple food, simple pleasures, simple living. The young girl often helps with chores around the house.

CHARACTERS

“When I was young in the mountains,

Grandfather came home in the evening

covered with the black dust of a coal mine.

Only his lips were clean, and he used them

To kiss the top of my head.”

The girl’s grandparents are depicted as loving and caring. The girl’s grandmother doesn’t mind walking her to the outhouse.

QUALITY, ILLUSTRATIONS, STYLE

The best books seem to use just the right number of words, and Rylant does this.

“On our way home, we stopped at

Mr. Crawford’s for a mound of white butter.

Mr. Crawford and Mrs. Crawford looked

alike and always smelled of sweet milk.”

Diane Goode’s illustrations show a crowded country store bursting with corn meal, eggs, and Mason jars. Her watercolors detail country life in the early-mid 20th century.

GENRE

Picture book

INTEREST LEVEL

Lexile: 450

Guided Reading level: K

Say, A. (1993). Grandfather’s journey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

SUMMARY/PLOT

In the early 20^th century a young man journeys from his home in Japan to the New World. He is awed by marvellous wonders:

…The endless farm fields reminded him of the ocean he had crossed.

…Huge cities of factories and tall buildings bewildered yet excited him.”

He settles in San Francisco and starts a family, but he misses his Japanese home. When his daughter is almost grown he moves his family back to his Japan. Yet he pines for California, and tells his grandson stories about living there, and plans to return to the U.S. on a trip. Calamity interferes, and his grandson picks up where grandfather left off, and moves to California as a young man.

CHARACTERS AND CONFLICT

The best books seem to use just the right number of words, and Say does this as he refrains from telling us how the characters feel. We know they are full of wistfulness. The have their feet in two worlds and they are always missing where they’re not.

“The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country,

I am homesick for the other.”

THEME

This book is about immigration, war, longing and life.

QUALITY, ILLUSTRATIONS STYLE

This is one of my most favorite children’s books. I have used it with children on both sides of the ocean. It is an excellent book to use with ESL immigrant children. They immediately understand it and tell their own stories about living in two worlds.

Say is both the writer and illustrator. His gorgeous, restrained watercolor illustrations extend his narration just enough.

GENRE

Picture book

INTEREST LEVEL

Lexile: 630

Guided reading level: O

Yolen, J. (1987). Owl moon. New York: Philomel Books.

SUMMARY/PLOT

A young girl and her father go “owling” on a cold winter night. They have to be quiet in order to be lucky enough to see an owl, and so John Schoenherr’s illustrations have to speak even louder than words, and they do.

CHARACTERS

In this book nature has a big role, almost like a star character.

“…The shadows

were the blackest things

I had ever seen.

They stained the white snow.”

“…the snow below it

was whiter than the milk

in a cereal bowl.”

The girl and her Pa silently trudge through the snow on a mission:

“…watched silently

with heat in our mouths,

the heat of all those words

we had not spoken”

QUALITY, ILLUSTRATIONS, STYLE

This book is ideal for Minnesota school children who live six months of their year in snow and cold. It perfectly depicts the winter brilliance and stark beauty of white, blue, gray brown and black.

THEME

Winter, nature, majestic owls, father and daughter

GENRE

Picture book

INTEREST LEVEL

Lexile: 630

Guided Reading level: O

LESSON PLAN

All three of these books have an interesting way with words, to paraphrase Ray (1999, p. 184), and could be used to engage young writers. Rylant and Yolen are often cited by Katie Wood Ray as authors that have the potential to inspire young writers, such as third graders.

Repeating Sentences (Ray, 1999, p. 165 & 236)

Rylant uses the sentence, “When I was young on the mountain” three times in her book to describe what she did growing up. A third grader could be invited to experiment with this technique to give continuity to her writing piece.

Similes, Metaphors, Personification

When Say describes:

“…Deserts with rocks like enormous sculptures amazed him.”

We can draw a third grader’s attention to both the simile and the illustration that accompanies it, and invite the child to experiment with the simile in his own writing.

As noted in the quotes from the text above, Yolen employs similes and metaphors liberally, along with personification:

“When you go owling

you don’t need words

or warm

or anything but hope.

That’s what Pa says.

The kind of hope

that flies

on silent wings

under a shining

Owl Moon.”

Hope flies on silent wings!

Third graders could be asked to try pairing feelings with interesting action words:

Sadness melts

Happiness sings

Anger burns

Finally, these three books provide further artistic inspiration. I have often used watercolor and tempra with children ages 3-8 to illustrate their writing work. There is nothing like the non-verbal quality of paint media to draw out the deepest feelings and expressions of youngsters.

Ray, K. W. (1999). Wondrous words: Writers and writing in the elementary years. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Zusak, M. (2006). The book thief. New York: Random House.

SUMMARY/PLOT

The Book Thief is narrated by Death, who tells us the story of Liesel Meminger. It's January 1939, and Liesel has joined Hans and Rosa Hubermann as a foster child after being relinquished by her poor, sickly mother and watching her younger brother die. As she views her brother’s burial, she steals her first book: a copy of the “Grave Digger’s Handbook” that she filches from the cemetery. However, she can’t read, and her foster father sees an opportunity to befriend Liesel as he teaches her to read and saves her from chronic nightmares.

Later Liesel steals her second book, “The Shoulder Shrug,” from a pile of burning books during a Hitler-inspired bonfire celebration. She swears hatred for Hitler when she figures out that besides burning beloved books, he also may be responsible for her mother’s death and her father’s disappearance. Hans warns her to keep her Hitler animosity to herself.

Max Vandenburg, the Jewish son of a fellow World War I soldier who Hans knew, becomes the fourth resident of the Hubermann household who must be kept hidden in the basement. Liesel and the Hubermanns befriend and care for him attentively even as Max is wracked by guilt and worry on behalf of his protectors.

Liesel claims other older friends, including the mayor’s wife Ilsa who has hired Rosa as her launderer. Ilsa indulges Liesel’s reading passion, and looks the other way when Liesel begins stealing books from her.

As the Hubermann household’s fear of harboring a Jew intensify, Max departs, and later Rosa shows Liesel the homemade book Max left for her, a defiant and hope-filled book written on painted-over pages of Adolph Hitler's book Mein Kampf. It's called The Word Shaker. Hans has also temporarily been conscripted to serve the Nazi war machine, and Rosa and Liesel fear for his return. With Hans and Max gone, Liesel does her best to go on. She reads to the residents of Himmel Street in the bomb shelter during air raids, thieves with her best friend Rudy, and helps Rosa. Just after Liesel's fourteenth birthday, Liesel and Rosa get word that Hans is coming home. He broke his leg in a bus accident, and his sergeant is transferring him. 

In August of 1943, Liesel sees Max again. He's marching through Molching to Dachau. She walks with him in the suffering procession. Liesel learns that he was captured some six months earlier, about five months after he left the house on Himmel Street. The Nazi guards don't take well to Liesel's courageous display, and Liesel and Max are both whipped. Rudy stops Liesel from following Max any further and possibly saves her life.



Soon after, Ilsa presents Liesel with a blank book, and Liesel begins writing the story of her life, called The Book Thief. She writes in the basement, and thus escapes death during a carpet-bombing of Molching in which every one of her loved ones are blown to smithereens. In despair over their deaths, Liesel drops her book, but it's picked up by Death. Soon Ilsa Hermann arrives and rescues her. Alex Steiner comes home, and Liesel spends nostalgic, bittersweet time with him. 
As the novel comes to a close, we learn that Liesel has died after living a long and happy life in Australia. We also learn that Max survived the concentration camp, and that he and Liesel reunited at the end of World War II. We surmise that they may have journeyed to Australia together.

CHARACTERS

Hans and Rosa Hubermann are winning characters among many. Hans’ selflessness cannot be overstated, and Rosa perhaps makes the most complete transformation from coarse to circumspect and munificent. This is one of the best books I’ve read in the last five years in terms of character development.

CONFLICT

The story contains tension between inner goodness and freedom and fascism, obedience and disobedience, girls and boys, hope and despair, and life and death.

GENRE

Historical Fiction

INTEREST LEVEL

Lexile 730

This book would be appropriate for accelerated readers in junior high and beyond.

LESSON PLAN

Socratic Questioning

The Junior Great Book Series (1992) has long been known for its Socratic and inquiry-based method of questioning. Shared inquiry notes important passages, and creates a framework for students to share questions and ideas about readings with classmates. Students learn from the author and from one another. Students learn to form factual, evaluative, and interpretive and questions. Fact questions ask fellow students to recall specific happenings from the reading. Evaluative questions allow the reader to answer questions concerning their beliefs in light of the story or reading, and how the reader feels about the author’s ideas. Interpretive questions are the heart of Junior Great Books. Students ponder the meaning of the reading, and no one answer is the “right” answer. An interpretive question may focus on a single event in the story, for example. Any answer that can be supported with passages from the text counts as a good answer.

Below, I will focus on evaluative and interpretive questions about The Book Thief.

1. “ ‘Liesel would not get out of the car.’

‘What’s wrong with this child?’

There was the gate next, which she clung to.

A gang of tears trudged from her eyes as she held on and refused to go inside. People started to gather on the street until Rosa Hubermann swore at them, after which they reversed back, whence they came” (p. 28).

What was Liesel feeling? How did this opening to the story make you feel?

2. “Looking back, Liesel could tell exactly what her papa was thinking when he scanned the first page of The Grave Digger’s Handbook…Not to mention the morbidity of the subject…As for the girl, there was a sudden desire to read it…On some level, she wanted to make sure her brother was buried right…hunger to read that book…” (p. 56)

What qualities of personality does this passage reveal about Hans? About Liesel? What about their personalities are complimentary?

3. “What shocked Liesel most was the change in her mama…She was a good woman in a crisis” (p. 211).

What made Rosa different when Max came? What does her transformation say about her?

4. “Occasionally he brought the copy of Mein Kampf and read it next to the flames, seething at the content…

‘Is it good?’

He looked up…Sweeping away anger…’It saved my life’ (p. 217).

What does Max’ answer tell you about him?

5. “Lastly, the Hubermanns…

Papa.

His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do—Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out…There was…an immense, magnetic pull toward the basement…” (p. 531-2).

What does Zusak mean, “…more of the have been put out”? How does Zusak’s eulogy for Hans compare to the other eulogies for the Steiners, Rudy, and Rosa?

Great Books Foundation. (1992). Junior great books, series seven. Chicago: Junior Great Books.

Martin, J. & Archambault, J. (1966). Knots on a counting rope. New York: Henry Holt.

POETRY

“A poem that tells a story is narrative poetry” (Norton, 2011, p. 32). Knots on a Counting Rope is a narrative poem and a poem for two voices: an old man and a young boy tell the story of the boy’s birth, the story of the boy’s horse race, and how the boy got his name: Boy-Strength-of-Blue-Horses. It is an American Indian-themed story, and sensitively weaves in Native traditions of oral storytelling, grandparent-grandchild relationships, and connections with the natural world.

“…and you raised your arms

to the great blue horses,

and I said,

‘See how the horses speak to him

They are his brothers from…’

“…from beyond the dark mountains.

This boy child will not die.’

That is what you said,

Isn’t it Grandfather?”

Part way through the book we learn the astonishing detail that the boy is blind. Yet the boy teaches his horse to ride with him to the sheep pasture on the plains, and to find the way home again. He even races with his horse.

“I said,

‘Boy-Strength-of-Blue-Horses,

you have raced the darkness and won!

You now can see with your heart,

Feel a part of all that surrounds you.

Your courage lights the way.

Yes, I remember, Grandfather.

They said,

“This boy walks in beauty.

His dreams are more beautiful

Than rainbows and sunsets.”

ELEMENTS OF POETRY

The book is full of metaphors. That is the way grandfather describes colors to his grandson:

“…Grandfather,

but I cannot see the blue.

What is blue?

“You know morning, Boy.

Yes, I can feel morning.

Morning throws off

The blanket of night.”

The deep relationship between the boy and his grandfather is poignantly revealed at the end of the book:

“I always feel strong

When you are with me, grandfather.

“I will not always be with you, boy.

“No, grandfather,

Don’t ever leave me.

What will I do without you?

“You will never be alone, Boy.

My love, like the strength of blue horses,

Will always surround you!”

ILLUSTRATIONS

Ted Rand’s lovely watercolor illustrations mostly depict dark scenes—evening campfires, kerosene-lit interiors—perhaps as a metaphor for Boy-Strength-of-Blue-Horses’ blindness.

INTEREST LEVEL

Lexile: 480

Guided Reading Level: M

LESSON PLAN

Knots on a Counting Rope could be a read-aloud that could be read quite a number of times. After the first few group readings and discussions it could be read as a poem for two voices—the boy’s and the grandfather’s—if it was projected onto the big screen with the help of a document viewer or if it was scanned and turned into a pdf. Older readers could read the book themselves, too. It would be a good book to have several copies of for Guided Reading.

This writing lesson plan could be used in grades three, four, and five. Children could be invited to tell about their lives and make their own “knots on a counting rope:” to each rope knot a three-by-five card is tied telling something that happened in a child’s year. A simple sentence starter such as, “I was born on __________________. During my first year I ____________________.” “When I was two __________________________.” Children write a card for each of their years on earth. Older children would be encouraged to write a paragraph.

Norton, D. (2011). Through the eyes of a child. An introduction to children’s literature, 8^th ed. Boston: Pearson.