by Mary Amato
I hope you keep reading, writing and drawing.
Take care,
— FROM THE DESK OF MALI KOAM —
Dear Nick,
Thank you for the hilarious poem. I laughed out loud when I read your question about my fingers falling off from writing so much. What an idea for a funny and ghoulish story that you should write!
You obviously have a great sense of humor. I hope you use it to write many wonderful stories.
Yours,
— FROM THE DESK OF MALI KOAM —
Dear Harrison,
Your words made my day. I loved your description of how it feels when you get to an exciting part of a book. Beautiful writing. I can tell that we are kindred spirits. When I was your age, I moved to a new school. I was shy and didn’t make friends easily. I discovered that whenever I was lonely, I could open a book and disappear into another world. I wanted to capture that feeling in “Secret Pages.”
I didn’t really have a secret friend who left me a book inside a tree trunk. Sometimes authors write the stories they wish had happened. I wanted Benjamin to not only find a friend in a book, but also to find a friend in his life.
May you always have good books to read. And may you find a kindred spirit in your new school.
Your fellow writer,
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13
Surprised and Shocked
by Kristin
Carly, Nick, Alexander and Harrison were all jumping around. It was fun to read the letters from Mali Koam out loud. The boys let us hold theirs, but Carly wouldn’t.
“It’ll be worth less with fingerprints on it,” she said.
“Wow,” Isabella said. “I really can’t believe it.”
“I’m glad I didn’t bet on it,” I said.
Then we noticed how sad Tee looked.
“Don’t worry, Tee,” Mrs. Penrose said. “Your reply will come. We mailed the letters from you, Omar and Jazmine later than theirs.”
“But Christmas is coming,” Tee said. “What if we don’t get our letters before the break?”
“We still have next week,” Jazmine said. “Our letters will come.”
Omar is dying to write, so I’m going to turn this over to him.
To the Whole Class:
We are getting a lot of good information from Mali Koam. We need to keep track of it. Please write below one thing you learned from her. I did an example.
Sincerely,
Things We Learned from Mali Koam’s Letters
1.You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.—
2.Hey Omar, you made a mistake. Ha-ha. It should be: You can’t judge a book by its cover. Oh, and here’s what I learned from Mali Koam: The best part of an author’s day is lunch.—
3.Writing is hard work. Authors write every day from 9 to 5 o’clock and don’t make much money.—
4.I need to go into real estate.—
5.An author is nice for taking time out of her busy day to write letters.—
6.My illustrations are terrifying and terrific. (Also, Friday the 13th can be a lucky day.) —
7.Authors are real people. (I hope she writes back to me, too.)—
8.Mali Koam is excellent at writing letters in addition to books. I knew she would be.—
9.Being a writer is a sad and lonely life. —
10.At first, I am thinking Mrs. Penrose wrote the letters and pretends they were from Mali Koam so we won’t be sad but then Omar shows me the postmark from Maryland. What I learn is sometimes when you write a letter to someone, you get a letter back.—
Dear Omar,
I noticed you got very quiet after Nick found your mistake. Don’t feel bad about it. Everybody makes mistakes. It makes me sad when someone in our room is sad, so I hope this makes you feel better.
Your friend,
—
Dear Tee,
1.I am very embarrassed.
2.Everybody is probably laughing at me inside.
3.I don’t think I should write in here anymore.
Sincerely,
Dear Omar,
When Nick wrote “ha-ha,” he wasn’t really laughing. You know Nick. I think he was pointing out what Mrs. Penrose called irony. It was ironic that you made a mistake because you’re usually so perfect. Look at it this way. You did us all a big favor by making a mistake. You showed us that everybody is human.
—
Omar,
Keep writing in here. If we’re going to win this contest, we need ya.
—
Okay, y’all.—
Ha-ha. Good one, dude.—
MONDAY, DECEMBER 16
Hurray!!! It’s like Christmas!!!!! Omar and I got letters!!!! Hurray!!!!
— FROM THE DESK OF MALI KOAM —
Dear Jazmine,
Thank you for your note and your encouragement. Your snazzy, jazzy pictures on the envelope really made my day.
Keep reading and writing,
— FROM THE DESK OF MALI KOAM —
Dear Omar,
I’m delighted that you have read so many of my books. Now, on to your fascinating question about the writing process. Is revision necessary?
Whether or not I revise depends on what I’m writing. If I’m writing just for fun or writing in my diary, I don’t need to revise. But if I want to share my writing with the world, I want it to be the best it can be. The truth is that my first try at a story is usually bad. I am just getting my ideas down. So, I have to revise all of my stories.
I believe that writers are a lot like athletes. Let’s say you are a soccer player and you want to do a bicycle kick. You know that you won’t get it right on the first try. You have to do that bicycle kick over and over in order to get good at it. A coach might give you some helpful comments on how to improve. An athlete needs to have a good attitude, listen to those comments and work hard. When you watch a great athlete, you can see how much focus and energy he or she is putting into it.
When it’s time for me to revise, I imagine I’m an Olympic athlete and the whole world is watching to see if I can nail this revision. I don’t say, “Oh, forget it. My rough draft was good enough. Revising is a waste of time.” Instead, I say to myself, “Come on, Mali Koam! You can do this better. Come on, baby! Go big or go home!” Then I write with everything I’ve got.
I hope that helps.
Write on,
I couldn’t believe that author lady knows what a bicycle kick is. And she said go big or go home. That’s what I say! I might read one of her books someday.—
"Come on, baby!” cracked me up.—
Will she ever write back to me?—
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17
WOW
by Kristin
Right in the middle of our lesson on allusions, Ms. Yang burst in.
“Pardon the interruption, but the mail came.” She waved an envelope, and she had a smile on her face. “Ho ho ho!”
“Oooh,” Mrs. Penrose said, and looked at Tee. “I have a feeling someone is going to be happy.”
Ms. Yang gave Tee the envelope.
“It’s from Mali Koam!” Tee said, and started jumping up and down. Tee is tiny, so she is extra cute when she does that.
“Would you like to read it to us?” Mrs. Penrose asked.
Tee nodded. First she just held the letter in her hands, and then she read it to us.
— FROM THE DESK OF MALI KOAM —
Dear Tee,
When I was your age, I used to be afraid of blank paper, too. I wanted to write stories, but I didn’t have any ideas. The longer I stared at the paper, the more afraid I would become. One day, my teacher said we could write a play. I went home sick because I couldn’t face it.
I overcame my fear, and you can, too. I will teach you my trick. It is simple. I call it the WOW trick. It is not the only way to write a story, but it is a way to write a great, simple story.
You start with a character that wants something. That is the first W. Then, there is an obstacle that gets in the way. That is t
he O. Finally, the character finds a way to overcome the obstacle and get whatever he or she wants. I call that the win. That is the final W. WOW.
You don’t have to think of a story all at once. You just have to start with the question: Who is my character and what does my character want?
Imagine my character is a nice cat. What might a nice cat want? A saucer of milk? What might get in the way of a cat wanting milk? A mean dog? How could the nice cat get around the mean dog and win the milk in the end? Trick the mean dog into leaving? Get help from a friend? Sing the mean dog a lullaby until he falls asleep? I bet you could think of a WOW outline for your rabbit. Give it a try.
Your fellow writer,
P.S. If you get stuck, don’t stare at the blank paper. Close your eyes and really picture where your main character is and then open your eyes and write your first sentence.
Greetings,
See? There has to be an obstacle—that’s the scary part, the suspenseful part. Without the O, there isn’t a story. I’ve been trying to explain that for years.
Overjoyed about obstacles,
I’m so excited because the WOW trick is giving me ideas. I’m thinking about that rabbit we saw on our walk. I could have the rabbit want to visit a friend, but the obstacle could be a storm that gets in the way, and then he could somehow find his friend in the end for the win.
—
Make it a she rabbit.—
I want to make it a he because Mrs. Penrose’s baby is a he.—
What if the storm made a flood and the rabbit had to fight for his life in the water? That would make us want to turn the page. I agree with Alexander. The more suspense there is, the bigger the win will be.
—
Make the storm ferocious!—
I can’t wait to write it. Thanks, everybody. When I close my eyes, I can see the whole thing like it’s real.
—
Breaking News
by Alexander H. Gory, Jr.
Marcos from Mr. Suarez’s class stopped me just now on the way to the bathroom.
“Did you guys enter your story in that contest yet?” he asked with a Slytherin scowl.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” I said.
“Tell Carly that Mrs. Nowlopp, Mrs. Czekyour and Ms. Sonnel found out about the contest and they’re giving extra credit to everybody in their classes for entering.”
Even more competition for us.
We are certainly doomed now.
Emergency
by Kristin
When Alexander brought us the news, we asked Mrs. Penrose for a class meeting.
“This is bad, bad, bad,” Carly said.
“Competition is a part of life,” Mrs. Penrose said. “You have two choices. You can either give up or you can stay in the game and do your best.”
“Who cares about them?” Jazmine said. “Let’s just have fun.”
Carly got excited again. “Okay, but I still think we have a better chance of winning if we work together. Ten heads are better than one.”
“We can always write our own stories for fun, but if we all work on one for the contest together, then we won’t be competing against each other,” Tee said.
“We’ll never agree on a story idea,” Omar said. “We have completely different tastes, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Let’s each write down one WOW idea and put it in a hat,” I suggested. “We’ll pick one. Whatever we pick, we’ll do. No moaning and groaning if we don’t pick yours. We can make any subject into a good story. And like Tee said, you can always write your own story at home.”
“Very practical suggestion, Kristin,” Mrs. Penrose said.
“Whoever’s story gets picked can start writing the story. Then he or she can pass it on. We can all add to it,” Harrison suggested.
“Like a relay race,” Buzz said.
Isabella jumped up and got her hat out of her cubby. She has a very cute purple one with flowers on it. “We can put our ideas in here.”
“Wait. Can I please suggest how to write the ideas?” Omar asked.
“Sure,” Mrs. Penrose said.
“Everybody write your idea in three sentences.” Omar went up to the smartboard and wrote:
1. Who is your character and what does your character want?
2. What is the obstacle that gets in the way of the want?
3. How does the character win?
“Fine,” Carly said, and Omar smiled.
We all wrote down our three sentences, folded up our papers, and put them in Isabella’s hat.
“Mrs. Penrose,” I said. “You pick so that it’s fair.”
Isabella held out the hat. Mrs. Penrose closed her eyes and picked.
I looked around the room. You could tell that everybody wanted their his or her story to be the one, but I think nobody wanted it as badly as Tee. She had her eyes closed, too, and you just knew she was picturing that rabbit in her mind.
Mrs. Penrose pulled a piece of paper out and opened it.
“The rabbit story!” she said.
Tee jumped up and started doing her little sugarplum fairy dance again, which made everybody laugh. Even Nick, who really wanted a funny story, was happy for her.
“I have an idea,” Alexander said.
“Let me guess,” Carly said. “You want to turn it into a rabbit zombie.”
“Actually, I was thinking about how Harrison got that idea for a story about the moon and the snow on our walk,” Alexander said. “What if the moon was out, like Harrison said, and the rabbit thought the moon was his friend and he wanted to climb up to it. But then he gets lost and the storm comes—”
Harrison smiled.
“Yeah, but somehow there has to be a happy ending!” Jazmine said.
“I absolutely love this enthusiasm,” Mrs. Penrose said. Her eyes crinkled the way they do when she likes what we say. “Tomorrow I’ll make sure to set aside time so you can write a rough draft. I can’t wait to read that story.”
WOW story coming tomorrow. Stay tuned. That’s a wrap!
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18
Disaster
by Alexander H. Gory, Jr.
Close your eyes. Imagine a whole team of Olympic speed skaters on the ice, hearts pounding, muscles gripping, ready to start the race of their lives.
That was us this morning, waiting to come into the school to work on our WOW story. We were all talking excitedly as we walked into the room . . . and then we froze.
A tall, white-haired stranger with a white mustache and round glasses was sitting at Mrs. Penrose’s desk.
“My name is Mr. Pinkerton,” he said. “Put away your things and sit quietly. We have lots of work to do today.”
“Where is Mrs. Penrose?” Jazmine asked.
His lips were zipped. He wrote on the board: “Mr. Pinkerton’s Rules: 1) If you have a question, please raise your hand.” Then he turned around and looked at us.
Carly dared to raise her hand.
“Will Mrs. Penrose be back tomorrow?”
“I was just given this assignment for today. I assume your teacher will be back tomorrow,” Mr. Pinkerton said. Then he started passing out worksheets. “I’ve taught for many years and have seen every trick in the book. Treat me with respect and we’ll get along just fine.”
He gave us so much morning work (the lesson was about when to use parentheses), we didn’t have any time to write the story. That is not getting along “just fine” to me.
At recess, Tee (dying to start the story) tried to get this book from the shelf in the Good Book Nook, but he took it with the bony fingers of his outstretched hand and put it back on the shelf.
“Mrs. Penrose lets us take it outside,” Carly said. “We get to write in it whenever we have free time.”
Mr. Pinkerton did not blink. “My rule is no bringing anything out to recess.”
We were furious. Tee was almost crying.
“It’s okay, Tee,” Jazmine said. “Tomorrow we can tell Mrs. Penrose that Mr. Pinkerton wou
ldn’t let us write.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “We’ll tell her that Mr. Finkerton made us work so hard our fingers fell off.”
“What if she can’t come back tomorrow?” Isabella asked.
“She probably just went to the doctor for a checkup today,” Kristin said.
“I bet she’s getting one of those X-ray pictures of the baby,” Carly said. “My mom showed me mine. I’m all curled up but I’m looking at the camera and my thumb is like this . . .” Carly smiled and gave us a big thumbs-up sign.
We had to laugh at that one (well, except for Omar).
“That’s a lie,” Omar said. “Babies have their eyes closed in there.”
“Okay, but I had my thumb up, and that is no lie,” she said.
I am writing this after school and will have to stop when my bus is called. If Mrs. Penrose doesn’t return tomorrow, we must begin ways of plotting to overcome the ornery obstacle known as Mr. Pinkerton!
(Nick is begging for a turn.)
Today the room (Mrs. Penrose’s classroom) became a pit of quicksand (not really, of course, that was just a metaphor) and we spent the day sinking. Why, you ask? (Actually, you didn’t really ask, but I’m imagining that you’re curious.) Because the lesson (taught by Mr. Pinkerton (our substitute)) about parentheses (those handy little hooks that go around a phrase (or a word or a whole sentence))) was so boring.
Ha ha ha ha.
—
Nick, I get the joke, but it made my eyes hurt.—
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19
The Note
by Kristin
