Bookworm Literary Festival 2014: Alison Lloyd
This morning's program at The Bookworm was another great one for the kids. Hailing from Australia, Alison Lloyd has written mostly historical fiction for children, some of which are based in ancient China. Lloyd spent two years studying Chinese in Beijing in the late 1980s, and has at times drawn upon her Chinese interest in her writing.
Myles and Brigid enjoyed hearing Lloyd talk about how she finds inspiration in the Warring States period for her stories, and they particularly liked the guided writing exercise at the end. We were joined by a group of third-graders from Dulwich and a couple of other kids we've seen at other programs as well.
More after the jump
The Warring States period and Qin Shi Huang's ruling over the united seven kingdoms is a period that is particularly rich in stories for Lloyd to mine. With all the wars and battles, and one especially ruthless, ambitious emperor, there is no end of story starters for writers of fiction rooted in history.
Lloyd's talk was not merely to promote her books, but also to help the children understand one way to write stories. Lloyd's approach with the children was to think of characters first, once given the setting. She gave two important pieces of advice for them to come back to later, to consider 1) Who are your characters and 2) What do your characters want. She added, much to the amusement of a few of the kids and most of the grown-ups, that if they understood these two important questions, they would already understand more about storytelling than most adults.
To help the kids find the characters that give interesting answers to #1 and #2, she showed us her translation of a letter that was actually written during the end of the Warring States. The writer was a soldier named Jin who was in an occupying regiment in one of the conquered villages. He was clearly writing to his home, asking for money and some measure of cloth, noting that where he was dangerous, populated with people disobedient to their new rulers, and void of any food. He further admonished the recipient of this letter to remain at home and not follow Jin to this wild and desperate place.
With this letter, she prompted the kids to try brainstorming with her. They listed potential story characters, like Jin, the person to whom he wrote the letter (probably a yonder brother), a villager, someone else in the army, etc. And then they listed some of the wants of each character, such as Jin wants money to buy food and cloth for warm clothes, the younger brother wants to be in the army with Jin, the villager wants the army to leave, the army wants the villagers to obey so they can go home, and so on. She then talked the kids through a series of what-if's with these scenarios to help them see how to plunge into the story. With every new chain of possibilities she proposed, I could see kids around me seize on one potential scenario or another as one they wanted to use for their story. I definitely saw it in Myles, and I noticed it in some of the Dulwich students as well.
The children then had about fifteen or twenty minutes to write. Myles and the other children got going quickly, scribbling furiously from the start. Brigid took a little more to get in gear. I was worried at first that she didn't quite understand the task. She did, though. Her story, she told me, she wanted to record in her own Moleskine notebook instead of the paper provided. I was to be employed as her personal scribe. Then, after she gave a few tugs of her hair to get, as she put it, her "thinking machine working" she spun a tale about a little girl who lived in this village and needed to hide her puppy from the soldiers. I was surprised that, yes, she really did get the setting as proposed by Lloyd for this exercise, and that there was an absence of princesses. Just a girl and her dog.
After they were done, or rather, time was nearing a close, Lloyd invited everyone to read their stories to the group if they liked. It was great how different every child's story was. When it was her turn, Brigid was absolutely delighted that Lloyd offered to read her story aloud. I love the look on her face
as she listens to someone else read her words.
Myles also was more than happy to share his writing, too, provided that Lloyd provided the reading.
His story was much more tragic than some of the others'. Jin died. Rather heroically, I might add, and not without some end-of-life reflection.
At the end, I asked the kids what book of Alison Lloyd's they would like to buy and have signed. Brigid didn't have an opinion, but Myles honed in on a recent publication of Lloyd's that was similar to Horrible Histories.
Of course this would be the one Myles chose.
She happily inscribed it to both of the kids, though it may be a few years before Brigid cracks this one open. She is thoroughly disgusted by Horrible Histories, or, as she calls them, "Horrible Things."
Myles and Brigid enjoyed hearing Lloyd talk about how she finds inspiration in the Warring States period for her stories, and they particularly liked the guided writing exercise at the end. We were joined by a group of third-graders from Dulwich and a couple of other kids we've seen at other programs as well.
More after the jump
The Warring States period and Qin Shi Huang's ruling over the united seven kingdoms is a period that is particularly rich in stories for Lloyd to mine. With all the wars and battles, and one especially ruthless, ambitious emperor, there is no end of story starters for writers of fiction rooted in history.
Lloyd's talk was not merely to promote her books, but also to help the children understand one way to write stories. Lloyd's approach with the children was to think of characters first, once given the setting. She gave two important pieces of advice for them to come back to later, to consider 1) Who are your characters and 2) What do your characters want. She added, much to the amusement of a few of the kids and most of the grown-ups, that if they understood these two important questions, they would already understand more about storytelling than most adults.
To help the kids find the characters that give interesting answers to #1 and #2, she showed us her translation of a letter that was actually written during the end of the Warring States. The writer was a soldier named Jin who was in an occupying regiment in one of the conquered villages. He was clearly writing to his home, asking for money and some measure of cloth, noting that where he was dangerous, populated with people disobedient to their new rulers, and void of any food. He further admonished the recipient of this letter to remain at home and not follow Jin to this wild and desperate place.
With this letter, she prompted the kids to try brainstorming with her. They listed potential story characters, like Jin, the person to whom he wrote the letter (probably a yonder brother), a villager, someone else in the army, etc. And then they listed some of the wants of each character, such as Jin wants money to buy food and cloth for warm clothes, the younger brother wants to be in the army with Jin, the villager wants the army to leave, the army wants the villagers to obey so they can go home, and so on. She then talked the kids through a series of what-if's with these scenarios to help them see how to plunge into the story. With every new chain of possibilities she proposed, I could see kids around me seize on one potential scenario or another as one they wanted to use for their story. I definitely saw it in Myles, and I noticed it in some of the Dulwich students as well.
The children then had about fifteen or twenty minutes to write. Myles and the other children got going quickly, scribbling furiously from the start. Brigid took a little more to get in gear. I was worried at first that she didn't quite understand the task. She did, though. Her story, she told me, she wanted to record in her own Moleskine notebook instead of the paper provided. I was to be employed as her personal scribe. Then, after she gave a few tugs of her hair to get, as she put it, her "thinking machine working" she spun a tale about a little girl who lived in this village and needed to hide her puppy from the soldiers. I was surprised that, yes, she really did get the setting as proposed by Lloyd for this exercise, and that there was an absence of princesses. Just a girl and her dog.
After they were done, or rather, time was nearing a close, Lloyd invited everyone to read their stories to the group if they liked. It was great how different every child's story was. When it was her turn, Brigid was absolutely delighted that Lloyd offered to read her story aloud. I love the look on her face
as she listens to someone else read her words.
Myles also was more than happy to share his writing, too, provided that Lloyd provided the reading.
His story was much more tragic than some of the others'. Jin died. Rather heroically, I might add, and not without some end-of-life reflection.
At the end, I asked the kids what book of Alison Lloyd's they would like to buy and have signed. Brigid didn't have an opinion, but Myles honed in on a recent publication of Lloyd's that was similar to Horrible Histories.
Of course this would be the one Myles chose.
She happily inscribed it to both of the kids, though it may be a few years before Brigid cracks this one open. She is thoroughly disgusted by Horrible Histories, or, as she calls them, "Horrible Things."
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