On Friday, a collogue and I were brainstorming what to do for a story group later this week. She needed a story and an activity by Monday morning. Ah, a great deadline.
The audience is made up of 3-5 year olds, the subject is habitat. She brought out a box of hand puppets, and without a thought I began to write a story for them. Habitat seems like a pretty esoteric subject for that age, but it isn't really. Where do you live and why?
In about half an hour I had the bones of a 500 word story about habitat. I rewrote it in the afternoon and again on Saturday. Today I will show the finished work to my colleague and see what she has to say, then one final rewrite and off we go.
The big problem with it as a product is that I am not an illustrator. Kids' stories need pictures. In this case the hand puppets will illustrate the story.
I wrote stories for my daughter when she was little, I wrote a book about the family that lived in the house at the first museum where I worked. It was aimed at fourth graders and I think four or five people actually read it. But haven't done a real kids' story for ages.
OK, so it won't win a Newberry Medal, but it is serviceable. And I am proud of having written it.