Writing Rhyming Riddles like Guess Again!

Today I had a class visit from a T/K class from McKinley Elementary School. I knew it would have to be a very quick visit, because it would just be a part of their city center field trip. Fortunately, I had one of my favorite picture books on hand, Guess Again! by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Adam Rex.

Each spread of the book shows a picture that appears to be an animal, and despite a lot of hints in the rhyming riddle, it turns out to be a person--usually in a very odd and funny-looking position! I love Mac Barnett's writing style. Combined with Adam Rex's masterful illustrations, the book engages kids in thinking about rhymes and piecing clues together to solve a riddle.

The kids were great about guessing each animal that they were being led to guess, following the picture cues and the rhyme cues. (I'm thinking they would do a great job with the Listener Limerick Challenge on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!) And by the end, just when the kids are starting to get wise to the joke, the joke is once again turned around on them! To be honest, this might be a book you share with a kid who is particularly patient. There's something almost snarky about the way this book NEVER rewards you for guessing the obvious! 

After reading the book, I pulled out my big writing pad, on which I had a few prompts and blank lines written out.

I asked the kids to name an animal. The first child I called on said "Elephant" -- unfortunately, I don't know any good rhymes with "elephant" (though if you can think of any, please leave some in the comments!!!). So I had to call on someone else, and she said "Giraffe."  "Okay!" I said. "I can work with that one!"

We wrote out a few words that rhyme with giraffe (at least, the last syllable). Then we decided it would be a boy, and I asked the kids to start telling me what they know about giraffes. The first kid I called on for this section gave me a sentence about laughing, so I decided to make "Laugh" our special rhyming word. I put the word "laugh" in the box, and then wrote a draft sentence with the word "laugh" at the end.

Once we had a few other sentences about giraffes, we were ready to fill out our riddle. We decided that the end of the riddle would of course not be "Giraffe" -- like in Guess Again, we ended with a different person. Kids wanted a monkey, so we landed on Mr. Monkey, a favorite children's book character of mine.

Then I decided to cut a few extraneous words--editing is part of writing!

If you'd like to try out this activity, and use easy-to-print handouts to lead a group of kids to create a whole book full of these silly riddles, check out my book, 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing. And if you haven't already got Guess Again! by Mac Barnett and Adam Rex, buy it! It's a great one to have on hand for storytimes with kindergartners and up. 

Cool Books with African American Protagonists

A while back, I was helping a dad looking for books with African American main characters. My first impulse was to hand him something by Christopher Paul Curtis--I think I had just finished reading The Madman of Piney Woods and loved it--but he stopped me. He said he was tired of finding African American characters only in books about history. His kids weren't into historical fiction. They didn't want to read about the traumas of slavery, racism and Jim Crow. They wanted to be entertained. They were into sports, fantasy, adventure. The dad just wanted his kids to read fun books and see characters that looked more like them. I ended up giving him The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, and he was happy with its themes about sports, teenage romance, sibling rivalry and father-son relationships.

In recent years, with the #WeNeedDiverseBooks and #OwnVoices movements, there's been an explosion of good, exciting and entertaining books that feature people of color. So this month, Black History Month, in addition to our usual displays featuring biographies of important African American figures in history, I decided to celebrate blackness in contemporary books by putting up a display of general fiction books featuring black kids. 

It's got graphic novels like New Kid by Jerry Craft, Goldie Vance by Hope Larson and Brittney Williams, and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur by Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare. 

There are fantasy books like Dragons in a Bag by Zetta Elliott and Arcade and the Triple T Token by Rashad Jennings. 

There are page-turning capers like The Great Greene Heist and mysteries like The Parker Inheritance, both by Varian Johnson. 

There are slice-of-life realistic novels like Tight by Torrey Maldonado and the Track Series by Jason Reynolds. And there are books that defy realism like My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich by Ibi Zoboi.

There are early chapter books like the Dyamonde Daniel series by Nikki Grimes, the Sugar Plum Ballerinas series by Whoopi Goldberg, and the Ada Twist, Scientist books by Andrea Beaty.

There are picture books like Max and the Tag-Along Moon by Floyd Cooper, I Used to be Famous by Tara Luebbe, Becky Cattie and Joanne Lew-Vriethoff, Hair Love by Matthew Cherry and Vashti Harrison--and that's just a start! 

So. Many. Great. Picture. Books. If I wasn't so short on time, I'd compile a longer list.

It's so nice to see lots of books nowadays featuring characters of color. There's always room for improvement, but I hope African American families like that dad and his kids found something fun and self-affirming in my book display this month!

Announcing the Winner of the November 36 Workshops giveaway!

Congratulations to Frances Price, a school librarian in Wendell, North Carolina! She won the Rafflecopter giveaway and will be receiving one copy of 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing, one copy of Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri, and one copy of Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees!

I appreciate everyone who entered to win, and I'd like to share a discount code with you to make it a little easier to get 36 Workshops for the teacher or librarian in your life this holiday season!

Here it is:

WGKW19

Exp. 12/31/20

$5 off

36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing

978-0-8389-1648-3

Thank you again to all who entered. And congrats to Frances!

Easy Peasy Comic Strip Activity!

The other night I went to an elementary school to do an outreach for their annual Dr. Seuss Pajama Night, and every year I try to give the kids something a little different, and appealing to all age levels. This year I used the handouts from my book, the lesson on the book The Pigeon Needs a Bath by Mo Willems.

I brought this book and other Pigeon books along for parents and kids to read:

The nature of this particular outreach is that I'm set up in a classroom and families are coming in and out all night. So it's not really possible to do a storytime--people would only catch parts of it as they're supposed to hit all the classrooms before the event closes. They usually spend only fifteen minutes with me, so I brought an activity that required very little instruction.

I started out by handing each kid that comes in a copy of my handouts and prompting them with the question: "Do you like comic strips? We're making our own comic strips tonight!"

I also showed them the sample I made (feel free to steal this dialogue and use it if you like it):

The kids loved the cute little aliens and all the varied and dramatic expressions he/she/it makes! They got right to work cutting out the aliens and gluing them to the comic strip layout. Then they got creative with giving their aliens words:

Here are some of their finished comic strips!

It turned out to be the perfect activity for the wide range of skill levels and ages that all these children had. Everybody got something out of it and made something they liked. Everybody loves comic strips!

Presidential Campaign Videos for Our Favorite Toys

On July 13, 2018, we had a special creative writing and filmmaking workshop for kids between the ages of 5 and 8, to make campaign videos about getting their toys elected president!

The idea came from the book I've published with lesson plans to do writing workshops with primary grade kids: 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing From Aliens to Zebras. In it, you'll find my lesson plan for this writing party and the handouts to supplement this lesson.

First we read the book "President Squid" by Aaron Reynolds and illustrated by Sara Varon. Then we watched a couple of funny campaign videos on YouTube, and brainstormed a campaign video using a favorite toy as the candidate. We used a handout from my book to start writing our script ideas.

Then we filmed our toys talking about why they should be president, using iPads with the iClips app. It was very easy and smooth to film and edit. Parents took short clips of their kids acting these commercials out, and then combined the clips together in the app to make their films.

I made a film of my own to give kids some ideas for how to use the props or sample arguments to make. Is my video amazing?... Of course not. :) That was the point--I wanted to make something very simple that a five or six year old could make.



I made or purchased props from Michaels and the Dollar Store--it helped that July 4th was fairly recent and there was lots of American flag themed items on clearance!

Most kids brought their own toys, but I also had a few on hand to lend for kids who didn't bring one. I loved seeing the kids get into the filming and parents get really engaged with the filming and editing!

In hindsight, I wish I had encouraged the kids to all do their filming outside, because you can hear me yammering in the background while some of them were filming their videos. The kids who filmed outside the room didn't have that problem.

The kids also got to make campaign buttons for themselves:

At the end, I quickly uploaded all of the videos from the iPads onto a laptop and showed them. We held a vote on our favorite video. That's what it's about right?--elections! The winner was this one, by Abby V., about a Cookie running for President:



Here are the rest of their adorable films!



Isn't it just awesome how these kids are making arguments listing pros and cons, using character and voice, having fun with monologue and dialogue, as well as props, scriptwriting, staging, etc.? I can't wait to do this program again!

New Research on the Value of Picture Books and the Way Kids' Brains Respond to Screen Media

A new study by Dr. John S. Hutton shows how children's brains respond to hearing stories told in three different formats, and may lend support for the idea that the best format for sharing a story with a child is reading a picture book to them! Kids's brains were imaged while hearing a story with no pictures, hearing a story with pictures, and hearing a story that is completely animated, and the findings show that hearing a story with illustrations (but not animated ones) promotes the most interconnectivity among brain regions.


This could have fascinating implications for makers of tablet storybook apps, most if which tend to be a little too heavily animated to be encouraging of a child's imagination. At the very least, it should be good news to everyone who promotes illustrated books for kids, because the pictures give a child "limited visual scaffolding assisting the child while still encouraging active imagery and reflection." Basically, the pictures should give a child something to focus on while developing their listening skills, but don't have too much going on to take away from hearing the story.