(UPDATE: You can now buy 'Carrie the Limping Lion' through my blog, thanks to Payhip!)
I've been struggling to figure out the format for the children's stories that I want to write. What age group should I target? How do I actually start each story? What happens in each story? All of these are things I've been thinking about and not managing to come up with answers to, until today!
I've decided how to deliver each story, and that delivery is through simple poetry. I enjoy writing it, and hopefully it's more enjoyable for young children to read. Here's my first draught of "Carrie the Limping Lion". (Yes, she's named after me, Carrie-lion!)
Francois will be illustrating each stanza for me to make things more kid-friendly, and to add to the story a little bit.
Please give me honest and critical feedback - I need to learn a lot and improve the way that I write these, if I want to expand on the collection and actually have kids interested in the stories. If children find them boring, then they won't learn anything from them, and what would the point be in that?
Well, here goes nothing:
Carrie the Limping Lion
Carrie is a lion cub
Her knees are always sore
Sometimes when they hurt too much
They make her want to ROAR!
Jumping jacks are bothersome
And running makes her squeal
You can't see what makes it hurt
But Carrie's pain is real
Carrie has a lion's heart
Do you know what that means?
She's very brave and carries on
And joins the running teams
Soreness makes her running slow
And sometimes she comes last
But Carrie has a special dream
Of running Cheetah-fast
Sometimes when the pain is bad
Her mom wraps up her knees
With bandages to keep them warm
But sometimes others tease
The tiger cubs don't understand
So they don't play with Carrie
But that's okay, 'cause Carrie has
A cool best friend called Sally
Sally is a panther cub
And climbing is her thing
But when her friend is tired and sore
She joins her on the swing
They talk about all kinds of things
And like to play pretend
So Carrie is a happy cub
Life's better with a friend
*Update #1: At the end of each poem, I plan to include a kid-friendly description of what affects the character involved and how this makes things different for them. Sort of an educational post-script for children who want to read more about it.
*Update #2: Edited last line from "Because she's with her friend" to "Life's easier with a friend". Also, Francois has started illustrating it in the meantime, working on the opening illustration. Yippee!
*Update #3: Panthers are the strongest climbers of the cat family, so to give Sally and Carrie different interests, I've changed Sally's 'favourite thing' to climbing, instead of running.
*Update #4: Had a lovely phone call with my mommy and got some really useful crit about the metre and some of the clumsier lines. Thank you, Mommy!
*Update #5: Daddy pointed out that Leopards are not the fastest animals, cheetahs are... How has nobody caught this yet? Haha!
*Update #6: If Carrie needs bandages because she's cold, why is she wearing shorts? Changed stanza five from 'Sometimes when it's very cold', to 'Sometimes when the pain is bad', so the poem and illustrations make more sense together.
Showing posts with label disabilities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disabilities. Show all posts
Thursday, 26 March 2015
Thursday, 19 March 2015
A Different Collection of Children's Stories
(UPDATE: You can now buy 'Carrie the Limping Lion' through my blog, thanks to Payhip!)
There's an idea that I have for a collection of children's books. Basically, I want to write about children who are different, like I was (Or should I say "like I am"? I don't think I'm a kid anymore...). Now, everybody knows that I'm different from most kids. I'm a complete weirdo, after all, which is apparent to many people. The simple fact that I only just learnt how to ride a bicycle is a huge indicator of my weirdness. But that's not the kind of different that I'm talking about here.
What makes me different is that I have Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. I'm one of the very few lucky people who are currently in remission, so you don't need to get all worried about me all of a sudden. Sometimes my knees or hips hurt, but that usually only happens if I'm particularly stressed out, or overworked... Which is a big part of why I currently live in the Garden Route (so calm and pretty!) and only work four days a week as a waitress (which is actually very easy and stress-free). However, that's not the way that it used to be when I was a child.
Back in the day, when I was but a wee lass, I was very sore - very often. I wore bandages around my knees to keep them warm when the days were a bit too cool, and I couldn't take part in a lot of sporty activities with my friends. During school assemblies, I didn't sit on the floor with everybody else, because it bent my knees too much - so I'd sit on a chair with the prefects and teachers, which drew a lot of attention. So few children understood why I couldn't join them in their games every time, and it might have made things easier if they knew more about Arthritis in general... Which is what gave me the idea for the children's books. Really short, nicely illustrated stories about children who are different, and how they go about their daily lives.
Children with Arthritis (like me!), children who need glasses, children who are deaf... Children with all kinds of differences. My brother, Benjamin, calls children (and grown-ups) like this "diff-abled". We're still able to do most things that other people can do, but we're forced to do them in a different way. By the by, Ben has recently discovered that he has Asperger's Syndrome, so he knows what he's talking about when it comes to being diff-abled.
Of course, I can't finish this project alone. Ideally, I'd like to get input from as many people with as many differences as possible. Perspective is so important, and at the moment, the only perspective that I have is my own. If you'd like me to write a story about you, please leave a comment or drop me an email so that I can chat to you about your experiences as a child who was different.
I'd like to show children all over the world that although we're different, we're still just kids, and we don't want to be isolated and bullied, we don't want to be misunderstood... We just want to have friends.
There's an idea that I have for a collection of children's books. Basically, I want to write about children who are different, like I was (Or should I say "like I am"? I don't think I'm a kid anymore...). Now, everybody knows that I'm different from most kids. I'm a complete weirdo, after all, which is apparent to many people. The simple fact that I only just learnt how to ride a bicycle is a huge indicator of my weirdness. But that's not the kind of different that I'm talking about here.
What makes me different is that I have Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. I'm one of the very few lucky people who are currently in remission, so you don't need to get all worried about me all of a sudden. Sometimes my knees or hips hurt, but that usually only happens if I'm particularly stressed out, or overworked... Which is a big part of why I currently live in the Garden Route (so calm and pretty!) and only work four days a week as a waitress (which is actually very easy and stress-free). However, that's not the way that it used to be when I was a child.
Back in the day, when I was but a wee lass, I was very sore - very often. I wore bandages around my knees to keep them warm when the days were a bit too cool, and I couldn't take part in a lot of sporty activities with my friends. During school assemblies, I didn't sit on the floor with everybody else, because it bent my knees too much - so I'd sit on a chair with the prefects and teachers, which drew a lot of attention. So few children understood why I couldn't join them in their games every time, and it might have made things easier if they knew more about Arthritis in general... Which is what gave me the idea for the children's books. Really short, nicely illustrated stories about children who are different, and how they go about their daily lives.
Children with Arthritis (like me!), children who need glasses, children who are deaf... Children with all kinds of differences. My brother, Benjamin, calls children (and grown-ups) like this "diff-abled". We're still able to do most things that other people can do, but we're forced to do them in a different way. By the by, Ben has recently discovered that he has Asperger's Syndrome, so he knows what he's talking about when it comes to being diff-abled.
Of course, I can't finish this project alone. Ideally, I'd like to get input from as many people with as many differences as possible. Perspective is so important, and at the moment, the only perspective that I have is my own. If you'd like me to write a story about you, please leave a comment or drop me an email so that I can chat to you about your experiences as a child who was different.
I'd like to show children all over the world that although we're different, we're still just kids, and we don't want to be isolated and bullied, we don't want to be misunderstood... We just want to have friends.
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