“So I do a bunch of dots for the sand on the beach …. Then I make a bunch of V’s. Big V’s and Little V’s. Wave after wave in the ocean. Iou….vvVVvv”
A Squiggly Story by Andrew Larsen and Mike Lowery
Younger siblings look up to their older siblings and want to be just like them in some ways. Sometimes the situations where this is most obvious is when older siblings can do things that younger siblings cannot. It can be extremely frustrating and they can feel left out.
That is the predicament that this younger brother finds himself in. He sees that his older sister loves words. She loves reading words and she loves writing words into her very own stories. He feels the desire to join in and write stories of his own, there is just one problem, he doesn’t know how to write yet. All he can do is write a few letters and make marks on paper. He feels discouraged until his caring sister comes over and helps him find his own way to write stories. Empowered, he writes a story and shares his new discovery with his classmates at school.
Not only is this a sweet book about an older child assisting her younger brother, but it is a real strategy that can be used with pre-writers that have the burning desire to put their thoughts on paper, but feel discouraged by their lack of skills. This makes my teacher heart so happy and makes this book valuable in so many ways.
A Squiggly Story comes out this fall from Kids Can Press.
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