Rewriting the classics: Jumpstart your child’s storytelling skills

Imitation, so they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s also a great way to start developing your child’s storytelling muscles.  Young children often memorize the words to their favorite books. It’s a short step from that to changing the words slightly to make your own version. Here are five popular picture books that you may have in your house that are a great jumping-off point for writing your own stories with your preschool-age child.  This is a great activity for a lazy summer afternoon.

1)     Goodnight Moon (by Margaret Wise Brown).  Create your own goodnight story featuring the stuff in your child’s bedroom.  You can illustrate it with cutout photos of the actual objects, and make the book out of folded construction paper stapled together at the side. This is also great to bring along when you are travelling as a way to remember home and make bedtime more familiar.

2)     If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond). This is an easy structure to work with and allows you to explore cause and effect, and the humor of unintended consequences.  Can your child imagine what happens if you give a bear a banana or give an ape an apple?  Play out the scenario and see where it takes you.

3)     Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (by Mo Willems). What else should we not let the pigeon do? Don’t let the pigeon make your lunch? Get you dressed? Clean your room? Imagine the excuses the pigeon comes up with. You can illustrate your version with pencil, and older children may be able to create their own versions of the pigeon. (PS, did you know the pigeon has his own twitter account? Follow him @the_pigeon.)

4)     From Head to Toe (by Eric Carle). Imitating this simple structure by imagining what different animals can do and repeating it is a great imagination exercise for active preschoolers. Write down their ideas, illustrate with photos or drawings of the animals, or just act it out together.

5)   Harold and the Purple Crayon (by Crockett Johnson). For older kids who may be able to draw, this book is a great device: Have your child imagine she is in a sticky situation – how can she use the purple crayon to get out of it? What would be the equivalent dream picnic for your child of Harold’s nine kinds of pies?  How does she get back home to her bed?

Once your child is comfortable with the basic idea of creating new stories, you can start from scratch. You can always go back to the well and look for inspiration from other books. Happy writing!

-Anna Barber
Co-founder and CEO

This post was originally published in 2010. 

Introducing: Inspiration Station

Hope everyone had a great summer! At Scribble Press, we’ve stayed busy working on some exciting things, including a brand spankin’ new INSPIRATION STATION! We created the Inspiration Station because we wanted to give kids more tools – fun pictures, drawings, words and other materials – to help spark their imaginations and creativity in an inviting setting. Hopefully all the things they see will aid in their own self-expression!

Here’s a little tour of what you’ll find at the Inspiration Station:

It's an elephant... in a dress!

Laminated photo cards – You’ll find hundreds of photos to help develop the who, what, where, when and why of a story, or just to help with illustrations. Elephant in a dress, anyone?

Story starters, twist ideas, and synonym cards – “And then, all of a sudden, I sprouted wings.”  Now you’ll never run out of interesting plot turns or get stuck thinking of the perfect word to describe something.

Inklings – These cards provide step by step drawing instructions for dozens of popular items, from spaceships to castles to dolphins.

Story stones – For the more tactile scribblers, each hand-painted stone contains a single word to help get those creative wheels turning!

What do you think of Inspiration Station? We’re always looking for new things to add, so please share your ideas!

Books for kids: Creative writing by kids, for kids

“Once upon a time there was a guy who worked at the pound, which means he was a dog catcher.”

The story goes on to tell us how exhausted the dog catcher is from chasing one vexing dog in particular and how much he needs a vacation. Of course, the dog catcher’s tranquil stay at the Four Season’s is abruptly interrupted by… guess who.

For two days straight, I read this story aloud to a rapt audience of campers. Ten classes of more than 20 second and third graders followed every page, every picture. By the last class, I was sure the nurse in the room adjacent to ours would come barreling in and holler, “It’s President Obama’s dog!” – of course, spoiling the story’s random but entertaining ending. Thankfully she exercised restraint. And the children were left to cheer and laugh as the story concluded.

Read Daniela's entertaining eBook!

Written by Daniela Perez, The Missing Labrador was a raging storytime success. No listener called out “I’ve read that book before!” or “This is boring.”  Everyone wanted to see just what it was that they, too, could accomplish. After all, Daniela was only in third grade.

There is such value in sharing the stories that children write. We are mistaken to think only the glorious bound book of a best-selling author can inspire a child’s creativity. In fact, I might argue that children are the best writers for other children. After all, they share a certain appreciation of the improbable.

How else can you explain the universal acceptance of the idea that the exasperating, chicken-stealing dog causing mayhem at the Four Season’s ACTUALLY lives in the White House?

Check out The Missing Labrador or one of the other great books written by young authors.

-Jennifer Sarja

Rewriting the classics: Jumpstart your child’s storytelling skills

Imitation, so they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s also a great way to start developing your child’s storytelling muscles.  Young children often memorize the words to their favorite books. It’s a short step from that to changing the words slightly to make your own version. Here are five popular picture books that you may have in your house that are a great jumping-off point for writing your own stories with your preschool-age child.  This is a great activity for a lazy summer afternoon.

1)     Goodnight Moon (by Margaret Wise Brown).  Create your own goodnight story featuring the stuff in your child’s bedroom.  You can illustrate it with cutout photos of the actual objects, and make the book out of folded construction paper stapled together at the side. This is also great to bring along when you are travelling as a way to remember home and make bedtime more familiar.

2)     If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond). This is an easy structure to work with and allows you to explore cause and effect, and the humor of unintended consequences.  Can your child imagine what happens if you give a bear a banana or give an ape an apple?  Play out the scenario and see where it takes you.

3)     Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (by Mo Willems). What else should we not let the pigeon do? Don’t let the pigeon make your lunch? Get you dressed? Clean your room? Imagine the excuses the pigeon comes up with. You can illustrate your version with pencil, and older children may be able to create their own versions of the pigeon. (PS, did you know the pigeon has his own twitter account? Follow him @the_pigeon.)

4)     From Head to Toe (by Eric Carle). Imitating this simple structure by imagining what different animals can do and repeating it is a great imagination exercise for active preschoolers. Write down their ideas, illustrate with photos or drawings of the animals, or just act it out together.

5)   Harold and the Purple Crayon (by Crockett Johnson). For older kids who may be able to draw, this book is a great device: Have your child imagine she is in a sticky situation – how can she use the purple crayon to get out of it? What would be the equivalent dream picnic for your child of Harold’s nine kinds of pies?  How does she get back home to her bed?

Once your child is comfortable with the basic idea of creating new stories, you can start from scratch. You can always go back to the well and look for inspiration from other books. Happy writing!

-Anna Barber
Co-founder and CEO