Pistes d'exploration

This book is dedicated to Barbara Reid. Discuss the purpose of dedications. Why do you think the author dedicated her book to another author? If you wrote a book, to whom would you dedicate it?

Prior to reading, discuss the meaning of words such as bode, bellowed, nimble, nifty and nettles. Why is it helpful to preview new words? 

In the style of Rocksy, create a rhyming poem or story about a wish you would love to have come true. Read your poem to a friend.

Write what you might wish for at the Magic Wood.

Make a list of other stories you know that involve wishes (e.g. Jungle Drums, Strega Nona). Using a graphic organizer, compare those stories with this one.

Share stories of times when you were clumsy or fell down. How did you feel afterwards? How did you handle the situation?

Make an anchor chart of words used to describe sports/game-related incidents (bruise, sprain, bump, etc.).

Sort story words into Actions and Feelings, using a graphic organizer.

Choose a sport you like. Write a technique booklet with tips to help someone get better at this sport.

Strega Nona: An Old Tale

Mots-clés

Picture book , accidents , rocks , self-acceptance , stories in rhyme , transformation , wishes

Commentaire descriptif

Roxanne constantly stumbles and tumbles and falls when she plays with her friends; she is “really, really sick of getting hurt!” Her inadvertent wish to be made of stone is overheard, and granted, by a nearby Spirit of the Forest. But being made out of stone is not all it’s cracked up to be. Roxanne is renamed Rocksy. Her hair becomes gritty, supper tastes like dust and worst of all, she is still just as clumsy as before. Lively rhyme and strongly rhythmical verse, (“It’s very hard to hurry when you’re heavy as a boulder.Hooley called the others: together, they all rolled her”) play counterpoint with Rocksy’s frustration and despair. Coloured pencil, with defining marker outlines, whimsically captures the range of Rocksy’s feelings. In one spread, a thought bubble shows her happily dreaming of biking and swinging, while her stony reality only results in dismay: a crushed bicycle and snapped swing ropes. Readers will be heartened when the Spirit reverses the mistaken wish, and instead becomes Rocksy’s “enchanted playground coach,” encouraging her to practise, then practise some more. Certainly a lesson to serve many challenges and situations.