FernFolio » writing

Dear Sylvia by Alan Cumyn

fernfolio — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:08:19 +0000

What’s a guy to do when the girl he likes gives him a box of note paper and stamped envelopes before she moves away to a nearby town? If you’re Owen Skye, you start writing her letters telling her about life, about your two brothers, Andy and Leonard, about your dog, Sylvester, who has a thing about carrying around stones, and about your new baby cousin, Fillus Phyllis, who’ll only calm down and go to sleep if your mother drives you over so that you can pick her up and talk to her a while. But, if you’re Owen Skye, you’re also going to be too embarrassed about your spelling and too shy about telling Sylvia how you feel about her to actually send those letters.
Through his letters, which he writes and stores in a box in the basement of the old farmhouse in which his family lives, Owen shares his growing concern when his father quits his job as an insurance salesman to write a novel, throwing the family’s finances into turmoil. He tells Sylvia all about the book, how it’s about an invisible insurance salesman turned super hero who falls in love with a waitress named Rebecca, and how his parents starts to argue when the book starts to take a long, long time to get written, and his mother has to go out and find a job. And he expresses his feelings of uncertainty and frustration when, after inviting him to join her Scottish dancing group, Sylvia then decides that she prefers to dance with Danny Bainman.
Deer Dear Sylvia is a lovely story about a family struggling through hard times, about dreams and disappointment, and about a boy’s first love. A terrific sequel to The Secret Life of Owen Skye, and After Sylvia.
Dear Sylvia won the 2009 Silver Birch Express prize.
FernFolio Editor

The Fruit Bowl Project: 50 Ways to Tell a Story by Sarah Durkee

fernfolio — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:52:49 +0000

Ms. Vallis’ Grade 8 students are in for a special treat. It just so happens that her cousin is married to Nick Thompson, rock music icon, and that Nick Thompson is going to visit the class, share with them everything that 30 years in the music business has taught him about writing, and then give the students an assignment that will change the way they see themselves, their classmates, and the written word.
Writing, says Nick, is long hours all alone with a pen and an spiral bound notebook, trying to “think of the right word and feeling like a total champ when [he] find[s] it.” His theory is that writing is like an artist trying to capture a single bowl of fruit. There is one bowl, but “an infinite number of ways to paint it, depending on who’s painting and how they want it to look.” With the students’ help, Nick comes up with the bowl of fruit, the elements of a story, and challenges them to find a point of view, choose a genre, and tell the story.
SCHOOL, 6TH GRADE, READING TEST, DROPPED PENCIL, GIRL MAD, LUNCH, MILK OUT THE NOSE. With these facts, Ms. Vallis’ Grade 8s create poems, raps, limericks, reports, fairytales… and discover within each of them the power of writing.
The Fruit Bowl Project is a quirky and inspiring novel that will set you to thinking about your own story!
FernFolio Editor

Please Write in This Book by Mary Amato

fernfolio — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:59:19 +0000

At the start of a new school year, Ms. Wurtz hides an empty notebook in the class’ writing centre. On the first page of that notebook, she writes an invitation to her students to write and draw whatever they like, and adds that she will read their work at the end of every month. She adds a couple of rules: sign your name to your writing, and don’t tell others about the notebook but, rather, let them discover it on their own.
Over the next few weeks, eight students, four boys and four girls, find the notebook and write about their first days of school and their new class pet, a hermit crab named Crazy. They write about their friendships and share their personal hobbies and interests. They also take one another to task about small transgressions, but this exchange eventually leads to two classmates taking the notebook and hiding it in a school washroom. There are tears and apologies before the class agrees to work together to write a story worthy of their teacher’s confidence in them.
Please Write in This Book is a nice story about the struggles of eight children to find and express their own identity while respecting the needs and opinions of the larger group. I particularly liked that it is Jimmy, the boy who doesn’t like to read or write, who contributes the best part of the group’s story for Ms. Wurtz. Entertainingly illustrated by Eric Brace, it is humourous read for both children and teachers!
FernFolio Editor

The Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake

fernfolio — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:44:14 +0000

Thirteen year-old Maleeka Madison is laughed at and called names by her classmates. Tall and reed-thin and black, she is called beanpole and taunted because of her skin colour. To make matters worse, she wears clothes made by her mother, which often don’t fit properly, and she’s been a straight A student, a teacher’s pet. Now in Grade 7, Maleeka has made up her mind to fight back against the name-calling and bullying. She makes a deal with Charlese, the toughest girl in the class, to do her homework in exchange for being able to hang out with her, and views Char’s decision to bring Maleeka clothes each morning, so that she’s fit to be seen with, as an added bonus. But being seen in her company doesn’t stop the cruel remarks or prevent Char from using Maleeka to do her dirty work or from making nasty digs of her own.
When Miss Saunders comes to McClenton Middle School to teach English, Maleeka recognises her as trouble. Miss Saunders is determined to make a difference in the lives of her students, and identifies Maleeka as someone who is working well below potential. The teacher challenges the girl to begin to speak up for herself, and sets the example by inviting her students to openly discuss her own facial disfigurement, then telling them to take ownership of their sense of self. Miss Saunders encourages Maleeka to write and loans her books to help her improve her work. When she catches Maleeka smoking with Char in the girls’ washroom, she arranges for her to work in the school office in an effort to break the ringleader’s hold on the girl.
Maleeka knows she doesn’t want to be friends with Char and her gang, but fears the consequences of walking away too much to sever the relationship. John-John, who has tormented her for years, seems to get nastier and nastier, and, even when confronted about his behaviour, won’t back off. Caleb, with whom she used to hang out, has abandoned her, getting up and walking away from Maleeka to the cheers of their classmates. Though she prays for a strong spirit, the young girl simply lacks the courage to live up to Miss Saunders’ expectations.
But, when the verbal taunts and name calling turn physical, Maleeka has to decide whether she is going to continue to be held prisoner by the prejudice of others or find the courage to set herself free.
FernFolio Editor