Young Readers League 2017 Writing Contest 3rd place Category 1 (ages 8-11) The Ghosts in the Cemetery by Sienna Ng Age 10 (Grade 5) Field Elementary School Lily is a girl who has no mother. Neither does she have sisters or brothers. It’s just Lily and her father. Her father […]
Writing Parties September and October
Published on :Every month on the 2nd Tuesday, kids between the ages of 5 and 8 come to the library to hear a story and engage with a creative writing prompt inspired by that story. In September, we read the book Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French and illustrated by Bruce […]
Learning the Art of Writing Plots, with Author Kristen Kittscher
Published on :Last Friday, kids came to Pasadena Central Library for a free writing workshop with middle grade author Kristen Kittscher, who writes the Young and Yang mysteries! She shared some of the funny facts that inspired her book The Tiara on the Terrace, which is based on Pasadena’s own Rose Court […]
Writing Dialogue for Wordless Picture Books
Published on :Yesterday, after reading the book Du Iz Tak by Carson Ellis, kids in primary grades did an activity making up a new language. Then they created new written dialogue for picture books with few or no words. They chose a book and wrote dialogue for it on sticky notes shaped […]
Silly Split-Panel Books – Writing Parties for Primary Grade Kids
Published on :At our most recent Writing Party for Primary Grade Kids (previously named “Creative Writing for Beginning Readers”), we made split-panel books inspired by A Cheese and Tomato Spider by Nick Sharratt. Because of the odd format, this book is not available in Pasadena’s collection–unfortunately, libraries often cannot add unusual books […]
Reading Great Books to Learn Writing Great Hooks
Published on :At our Kids’ Writing Workshop on Friday, June 16th, we learned about writing engaging beginnings. I combed through the upper middle grade books at our library and looked through all of my favorites, seeing if the first line was something I would hold up as an example of a great […]
“Where I’m From” Poems and Blackout Poetry from Kids’ Writing Workshop
Published on :On April 21, our Kids’ Writing Workshop for ages 8-12 met to do some poetry in honor of National Poetry Month. We started with a poem template based on a poem by George Ella Lyon called “Where I’m From”: Where I’m From I am from clothespins, from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride. […]
Tick-Tock Castle Time — a story by Celeste Raynaud
Published on :One City One Story 2017 Writing Contest 1st place Elementary School category Celeste Raynaud Grade 5, McKinley School “Tick-Tock Castle Time” Booky finds a mysterious watch that transports her and her friends to 18th century France. It was Monday morning and Booky was riding her bike to school frantically. […]
Azlender’s Travel Adventure — a story by Kayla Su
Published on :One City One Story 2017 Writing Contest 2nd place Elementary School category Kayla Su Grade 4, Sky Mountain Charter School “Azlender’s Travel Adventure” Summary: Tired of his boring life in Avenlee, Azlender sets off on an adventure in the woods. Once upon a time, there was a poor peddler […]
Trappist-1 — a story by Evelyn Chen
Published on :One City One Story 2017 Writing Contest 3rd place Elementary School category Evelyn Chen Grade 5, Eugene Field Elementary School “Trappist-1” Summary: Seven new planets were discovered outside our solar system, and they are populated with inhabitants. On February 22, 2017, NASA discovered seven new exoplanets 40 light years away. […]