Pamela Zagarenki’s The Whisper will inspire readers and writers to bring their own stories to the pages of the books they read. When a little girl borrows a mysterious book from her teacher, she bounds home to devour it. As she is running, the words tumble from the pages and leave the girl with a wordless book of pictures. Her eyes fill with tears when she realizes the stories have disappeared, but a whisper urges her to imagine the stories within. She struggles at first, but as she focuses on the details of the pictures, the stories begin to form. The storytelling comes more easily to the girl as she looks closely at the illustrations. When she finishes the book, she drifts off to sleep and the stories spill into her dreams. She returns the book to her teacher and is anxious to share all of her stories. Her teacher’s reply, “I can’t wait to hear,” echoes the sentiment of all reading and writing teachers. Zagarenski’s homage to the wordless picturebook and the art of storytelling shines a light on the creativity and inspiration within every reader and writer.
Mentor Text Ideas- Getting Ideas; Wordless Picturebooks; Questioning; Titles; Inferring
No comments:
Post a Comment