Kids writing examples selected
by St. Louis authors

Here are three Christmas stories selected by St. Louis kids' authors Patricia and Fred McKissack as good examples of writing skill. The samples are from kids at Brittany Woods Middle School in University City.

For Young Saint Louis.com profiles of the three writers, click here.

1. Kwanzaa by Jessica Jackson.

It is December 25th at about seven o'clock in the evening. Our family is sitting around, eating and talking about celebrating Christmas. As we discuss family traditions, Grandma begins talking about a fairly new holiday that is based on very old African holidays.

The whole family starts discussing honoring the customs of Africa, as well as the origin of our ancestors. Grandma then tells us that this year our family will become involved in this great celebration called Kwanzaa and make it an annual family tradition.

Kwanzaa is a seven-day holiday that begins on December 26th and continues through January 1st. The name of the holiday comes from the Swahili words mantunda ya kwanza, which means "first fruits."

According to Grandma, Maulana Karenga, an activist scholar, created Kwanzaa in 1966 in the United States. Karenga developed seven principles to reaffirm and strengthen family, community and culture.

These principles are umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), ujiima (collective work and responsibility), ujamma (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity) and imani (faith).

Early the next morning, which was December 26th, we began to decorate our house with straw mats to represent the traditions and history, ears of corn to represent the children and the future of African people and a candleholder called a kinara to represent ancestral roots and the parent people or the continental Africans.

Each day, Grandma would light one of the candles and we would discuss the special meaning of that day.

The children in our family enjoyed the exchanging of gifts. These gifts had to be homemade such as clothes made with our mothers, toys made with our fathers or beads and bracelets made by the children.

One December 31st, we listened and danced to music celebrating the goodness of life, relationships and cultural grounding. Kwanzaa ended for us on January 1st, with the Siku ya Taamull (Day of Meditation), which was dedicated to sober self-assessment and recommitment to African values that reaffirm commitment to the dignity and rights of the human person, the well being of the family and community and the integrity and value of the environment.

Grandma informed us that each year we would have to learn more about this African Holiday celebrated by blacks and make it a part of our lives.

2. Ramadan by Amina Larara

When Sam woke up in the morning, he remembered that the next day would begin Ramadan, when he would have to fast from sun up to sun down for a month. It was not that bad for Sam because Ramadan was not just a month, it was a holy month when the great fast was meant to remind others to remember the poor while praying to their god.

So one of Sam's favorites was the great feast they have at the end of the day when his mom made lots of delicious dishes. When night came, it was time to eat and Sam was very happy. All the family gathered around the table and ate delicious dishes like couscous, dolma and shurba, a soup that Muslims eat after they have fasted the long day.

Days went by and Sam and his family were celebrating Ramadan each day. When the last day came, every Muslim would look at the sky and see if there was a full moon. If so, then the next day would be the Eade, which is the biggest holiday.

Sam woke up the next morning happily shouting, "It's Eade! It's Eade!" The family awakened and went to the mosque and then to visit some friends. The day ended up quite nicely. Now, they would have to wait two and a half months until the next holiday, the Big Eade.

3. Christmas by Bashir Kalayeh

It was a night before Christmas. It was the first Christmas that Schenekir's family had in America. They had just come from Germany the previous month and they lived in New York City. Lewis and August were the youngest kids of the family and they wanted to have Christmas like other kids in the neighborhood.

Their father, Morgan, was confused and he didn't know what to do. Kids were crying. Morgan went to the toy shop to buy something for the kids but he didn't have enough money to buy good things. He just had $10.00 in his pocket so he went to church to borrow some money or get help. No one was in the church so Morgan went home with nothing.

The next morning, when the kids woke up, they saw gifts all over the room. They ran to their parents' room to thank them. When they opened the door, they saw a lot of gifts for their parents.

They wanted to have a good Christmas this year. By receiving all those gifts, it even made their Christmas better. Everybody was happy and they celebrated their Christmas. But, they didn't know who gave all these gifts to them. Later, they found out it was Santa.