Pistes d'exploration

What do you know about authors? Do you have a favourite? What questions would you ask an author, given the chance?

What do you notice about the endpapers and title page? What do you think is happening? Discuss your ideas with a partner and share them with the class.

Select a piece of paper from an assortment and use it as inspiration for the first sentence of a story. Have your classmates offer suggestions for how the story could progress.

As a group, create a graphic organizer outlining the author’s writing process.

Read other books by this author and share connections with what you’ve learned about her writing process. 

Do a picture walk and predict what the story will be about.

With a partner, create a graphic organizer to sort the questions found in the first pages. Add in a few of your own questions, modeled on those from the book.

As a group, create a graphic organizer outlining the author’s writing process. Compare her process with the steps you use in class.

With a partner, use this writing process to create a story. Label the steps of the process as you prepare, write and revise a text.

The Scraps Book: Notes From a Colorful Life

Mots-clés

Picture book , authors , creative writing , creativity , illustrations (watercolours) , imagination , questions , storytelling , writing

Commentaire descriptif

Part memoir, part how-to, this ingenious book offers insight, while serving as a model for young people to invent their own stories. Language, illustrations and page layout emphasize the fluidity of the creative process. In one image, children stand on a collage-pile of text snippets in varying type-styles (“Curiouser and curiouser,” “BELLYBUTTON!”). A girl says, “I like this idea. Let’s keep it!” A boy says, “Why did she throw this word out? It’s my favorite!” Youngsters will enjoy the images of sweet quirky kid-characters exploring fantasy settings such as underwater, among dinosaurs and in the dark. They’ll relate to the kids’ questions: “Do you put a cat in every book? If you don’t, you should;” “Where does a story start?” Making sketches, getting stuck, brainstorming and dreaming are all subjects conveyed with child-friendly illustrations and language: “I draw and paint, I cut and paste. I let my mind wander . . . .” Together, author and children invent a story about a shy giant and a terrible beast. (“Hey! Wait a minute! I don’t want this story to end.”) This good-looking, thought-provoking—and funny—picture book offers an inside peek at the art of story making.