Christmas book authors (left to right) Ashley Fowler,
Olivia Cassidy, Alexandria Healey and Tim Royals

Kids learn how to write a holiday book

Fourth grader Ashley Fowler of Valley Park figured out an important lesson while trying to publish a holiday book. Her team almost missed a publication deadline because they spent too much time on the story's beginning.

Ashley was on a four-member writing team at Valley Park Elementary School. They got their book assignment from children's authors Patricia and Fred McKissack of St. Louis. The McKissacks have published over 100 kids books, including national prize winners.

Other members of Ashley's team were 10-year-olds Olivia Cassidy, Tim Royals and Alexandria Healey.

In November, the McKissacks gave writing tips to teacher Susan Evans' fourth-grade class. After a closed-circuit video conference, the kids divided into publishing teams.

They had a month to write, illustrate and publish their holiday books. Ashley's team had a problem meeting the deadline.

Ashley said, "The McKissacks told us that every story has to have a beginning, a middle and an end. But, we had a real long beginning and we got way behind. In the end, we all had to get together and typed the whole thing out."

Despite the rush to finish, their Christmas story was one books that got the McKissacks' attention. In December, the McKissacks held another video-conference session to critique the kids' publishing efforts.

The New Year's authors (left to right) Cody Rawlings, Anthony Lentini and Tim Tanner. (Missing because of illness, Jessica Huddleston)

Another book that got favorable attention was one about a Chinese New Year. This book was authored by Jessica Huddleston, Tim Tanner and Cody Rawlings, with research help from classmate Anthony Lentini.

(For the complete texts and illustrations for the two books, just click here. Also, you can read an earlier story about the first video-conference by clicking here.)

The Chinese New Year's book was one of the shortest ones published. But, it included some of the most thorough historical research and a very unique cover illustration.

Anthony said Ms. Evans at first wanted them to write about Christmas. "But, we had done so much research on New Year's that she said okay," he said.

When Cody Rawlings first offered his cover illustration, Ms. Evans thought he had traced it. But, Cody convinced her he had drawn it, using a picture of a Chinese lion as a model.

He said, "She held the drawing and the picture up to the light and could see I hadn't traced it."

The team spent a lot of time researching oriental new year's history. All the book publishing teams used internet sources for much of their research.

One unique touch was to include an oriental verse. The team said they used one they found on the internet. But, Tim Tanner said, "We could have used one of my Haiku verses." He likes to make up that type of oriental verse. He said they consist of three lines, the first with five words, the second, seven and the last, five.

Anthony and Jessica shared the work on their book. Each of them missed extended time from school because of illness.

Jessica did much of the writing but was absent when Young Saint Louis.com came to do these interviews. Anthony did research but he was out during much of the publishing.

In addition to the publishing of the book, each team had to give a PowerPoint presentation to the class about their work. Ms. Evans' class is part of a computer-intensive teaching program at Valley Park.

All of the kids got some valuable lessons about writing. Some came directly from the McKissacks but others were learned during the publishing experience.

Olivia Cassidy said, "I learned that stories shouldn't have too much talking. There's a need for more action and then a clincher at the end."

Alexandria Healey said, "I found out you have to put in very hard effort to be a writer."

For Tim Tanner, the lesson was that "you need to have a bigger problem and then you solve it with your story."

Cody Rawlings said, "I remember they said that some books take a long time to do."

For the kids in Ms. Evans' class, there was a lot to learn. And they learned both by listening to famous kids' authors and also by doing their own publishing.