Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 29, 1995 TAG: 9505300010
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Stories about these creatures and other creative writings were read last week at an author's tea and book reading.
Actually, it was more like an author's fruit punch, chocolate chip cookie and book reading.
The authors aren't famous - yet - but they are experts at how to think up stories and turn them into actual books. And they're only first-graders.
The young authors are in Melanie Leah's class at Fairview Elementary School in Roanoke. Recently, they invited parents and other teachers to their classroom to hear them read from their own books and show the illustrations they've drawn.
They've been working on their stories since late March, when two volunteer parents came in to help organize and make the books.
The first step was to come up with a fictional, or make-believe, story that began with the words "Once upon a time." For these imaginative first-graders, that was the easy part.
Leslie Cefaretti remembered a geography lesson from class and mixed that in with her love of the fictitious animals called unicorns.
In "Princess Dewdrop and the Talking Unicorns," Leslie's main character - the princess - rides to Spain and the Himalaya Mountains in Asia on a unicorn.
Other writers used real people as the main characters, based the story on something true, then let their imagination go from there.
Cichan Alexander wrote about her dad, Larry. The story began as she and her dad walked to a 7-Eleven store and back, then sat on the back porch and ate their food together.
But then, a fairy comes down and turns Larry into a 4-foot tall munchkin - someone small enough for Cichan to play with.
"Well the part about the 7-Eleven is true," laughed Larry Alexander. "But I don't think I've been that short for a while now!"
The next step was writing down the story.
Volunteer parent Katie Pero listened to every child's story. She wrote down key words to remind the pupils how the story would go. But the pupils were in charge of writing down each sentance.
Most stories had 15 to 20 pages, with one or two sentances per page. Pero helped with spelling and grammar.
Norma Griffiths, another volunteer parent, then typed the stories into the computer and printed them out.
Next came the fun part: drawing pictures to go with the story.
Breland Powell, who wrote a book called "The Boy and the Queen," said he wants to keep illustrating books when he grows up.
"That was my favorite one," he said, pointing to a crayon drawing of a woman with a big crown on her head and a huge smile on her face.
They also drew their own book covers. The covers went through a machine called a laminator that protects them with plastic.
Then the entire book - words, illustrations, the cover, plus a picture of the author - were put together into what looks like a spiral notebook.
The hardest part, most pupils said, was reading their favorite page in front of everyone at the tea party.
Dara Griffiths, who also wrote a story about unicorns, said she was very nervous reading her page.
"I was shaking when I got up there," she said. Dana chose to read the page about the unicorn getting lost in the woods, because that's when the story gets really exciting.
Both Leah and Pero say they were impressed with how much the children's reading improved as the books neared completion.
"Some had problems sounding out words when we started," Pero said, "but once they illustrated their stories, they were reading the whole thing to me with no problems."
The parents were obviously proud - smiling as they signed the books of whichever child came to share their story.
Larry Alexander was impressed that the children could read their page in front of an audience.
"It took a lot of nerve to read it in front of all these people," he said.
As for the authors, they were impressed with all the signatures scribbled in their books from people who had read, and enjoyed, the product of their hard work.
And, of course, the cookies impressed them too.
by CNB