Innocence or Arrogance? A 9 yo's autobiography

[Weird Harold]

(Posted in this forum because it's about writing a book.)

My grandaughter's third grade class did a project to write and publish their autobiographies.

They wrote, illustrated and printed thepages and sent them to a publisher for binding, so they have a genuine, properly bound book to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Two statements in my grandaughter's book made me laugh out loud at her innocent arrogance.

Re Kindergarten: "The hardest thing about Kindergarten was convincing the Teacher I knew everything."

Re Second Grade: "The hardest thing about second grade was nothing."

FWIW, both statements are absolutely true, if slightly incomplete.

Aside from the humorous side of this, I have serious question:

Does anyone have any suggestions for encouraging her budding Writing skills and/or controlling the swelling head of a very bright nine-year-old?

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

good on you

WH: that's great. I started reading to my sons before they could speak. Buy your gr-dtr. good books (not necessarily labeled for children). Both my sons are readers and one them writes poetry somewhat regularly (has even won prizes). With all the children in my life (related or of friends, I've only given them books as gifts).

Best, Perdita

 

[Weird Harold]

my kids have a microsoft creative writer CD

Ive ne ver seen it, but they use it all the time.

Make sure she saw you laugh, it will be good for her soul.

Make sure you tell her how talanted she is.


Buy her a journal with a cool lock and picture on the front, Maybe a black one with gel pens

She gets lot's of positive reinforcement about everything. The problem is she "knows" how smart she is and teeters on the edge of accepting it graciously and becoming obnoxiously "Know-it-all."

Her mother and I both fell on the wrong side of that line for a time, and I'm not sure how to keep her on the right side.

She did see me laugh and asked why -- I told her it would just make her head swell if I told her.

My mother got her a Journal for Christmas, but I don't know if she uses it.

I'll have to look into MS CreativeWriter CD for Christmas (or maybe her sister's birthday in Novemeber.)

 

[Chicklet]

She gets lot's of positive reinforcement about everything. The problem is she "knows" how smart she is and teeters on the edge of accepting it graciously and becoming obnoxiously "Know-it-all."

having been raised as a know it all, I can't really give you any hints on how to deflate her swollen head. is it so bad for a kid to have high self esteem nowadays?

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: good on you

Buy your gr-dtr. good books (not necessarily labeled for children). Both my sons are readers and one them writes poetry somewhat regularly (has even won prizes). With all the children in my life (related or of friends, I've only given them books as gifts).

I generally give both grandaughters a Borders or Barnes & Noble Gift card -- the credit card type -- both as an encouragment to buy books and as a lesson in money management.

Two Years Ago, the now 9yo bought the original A.A. Milne version of Winney the Pooh -- and has read it. She's also bought two of Shel Silverstein's poetry collections.

Encouragng her to read has already done it's work.

Chiclet:
is it so bad for a kid to have high self esteem nowadays?

No, I'll settle for a know-it-all before deflating her self-esteem, but there is a point where self-confidence turns to outright arrogance that causes social and learning problems.

She got a small taste of that earlier this year with an outside reading selection worth enough points fill most of her requirement for outside reading.-- she had to backtrack and read several lesser selections when it proved to be too ambitious a read.

 

[Guest]

 

[Weird Harold]

My daughter has just finished the Romana Quimby series, Its more cutsie, but it kept her interest and she read a few hours a day.

She has started on the nancy Drew books, so she is moving right one up.

At that age, chapter books are soo coooool

Keeping her in books is a problem -- the Ramona Quimby series I think only last her about an hour each. She got a four volume set by the same author as RQ for her birthday in April and It's long been relegated to the shelf of "books to read again someday" already.

I don't know if she's tried the Nancy Drew Series yet, I know it's been suggested to her.

I'm not sure how far she read in the Wizard Of Oz series. She struggled a bit with reading the second book on her own, but that was a couple of years ago and I don't know if she's tried again. Her Mom has the first fourteen Oz books in paperback and an illustrated collector's edition of The Wizard Of OZ in hardbound that she's trusted enough to read if she wants to.

She wants to collect the "Chapter Book" version of the Magic Schoolbus series but can't find them. Unlike me, she prefers hardbound books to paperbacks -- especially the comic book format of the Magic Schoolbus books she can find in the bookstores.

 

[jfinn]

Does anyone have any suggestions for encouraging her budding Writing skills and/or controlling the swelling head of a very bright nine-year-old?

You're on your own as far as the ego, but I do know of a wonderful book that I've given to lots of kids - and adults - to stimulate imagination, creativity and just have fun with. It's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris VanAllsburg who wrote Jumanji among others. It's basically a picture book, but not really for little kids.

The premise is that a man, Harris Burdick, came into a publishers one day with a group of sketches for a set of stories he'd written. On each page was the title of the story and a captioned illustration. The editor was amazed at the inventiveness and he eagerly makes an appointment with Mr. Burdick for later that week to see the rest of all the stories. The author never returns and a search for him proves fruitless. The editor eventually brings the drawings home to share with his children, who spend hours writing and making up stories to go along with the drawings. Now, years later the editor is publishing the drawings so that others can see them and do what his children did.

Of course this is all fiction, it's VanAllsburg who's done the illustrations, but they are amazing and you can't help but be pulled into them. I have a copy at home and anytime I have kids over it's one of their favorite things to look at, no matter how old or young they are. Generally I give them paper and pencils and tell them to pick a page and make up a story. I've got a whole box of them now and some of them are pretty good.

As for books to read, my nine year old niece loves Laura Engels Wilder's Little House series and she's just getting started on Madeline L'Engel's Time Series, starting with the trilogy, A Wrinkle In Time, A Wind In The Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which are smart and funny and still on my own favorite books list.

Hope this helps.

Jayne

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

 

[Weird Harold]

You're on your own as far as the ego, but I do know of a wonderful book that I've given to lots of kids - and adults - to stimulate imagination, creativity and just have fun with. It's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris VanAllsburg who wrote Jumangi among others. It's basically a picture book, but not really for little kids.
...
Hope this helps.

I kinda figured as much about the Ego.

That book sounds like eactly what I'm looking for to get her writing for fun.

I wonder if there's an online version that could inspire us older authors -- kind of like KM's challenge?

 

[jfinn]

I wonder if there's an online version that could inspire us older authors -- kind of like KM's challenge?

Excellent idea, Harold. I just went and looked and found this site that has all fourteen of the 'stories' and their illustrations. The Mysteries of Harris Burdick Unfortunately the quality of the drawings doesn't come through as clearly as it does in the book itself.

Also, I remember a few years ago when one of the newsgroups ran a challenge to do a story based on one of several of Edward Hopper's paintings. If I remember correctly, the stories that came out of that were really wonderful.

Maybe something like that would be fun to do here.

Jayne

 

[jfinn]

If I would have waited a few more Minutes, I could have just dittoed this

Just goes to show you great minds really do think alike.

Jayne

 

[deliciously_naughty]

To encourage her to write, you could ask her to write you other stories, and then buy her a binding kit so she can have more books by her. You can buy them at teacher's stores, and prolly at the discovery store.

Beyond that, there are writing contests for kids, which might or might not work.

Book suggestions...if she wants to prove that she's capable of more mature books, some of my really advanced 3rd graders (I have several "gifted" students in my class) read Holes, even though most third graders couldn't handle it. Also, the Narnia books are great.

 

[Just-Legal]

Heh, when I was in second year at school I was reading sixth year books, just cause I'd devoured the rest.

Roald Dahl I couldn't get enough of.

Has she read Harry Potter (don't hurt me)? Good reads, though she might be a little young?

Creative Writer rawks

 

[snooper]

Be a bit careful what you say to them. When one of my sons was about seven or eight he saw me look something up in our Britannica and asked me what the book was, so I explained the idea of an encyclopaedia as a repository of "all" knowledge.

Three days later he was on page 4 of Volume 1, having decided that reading it from end to end would be better than just looking up odd bits of it from time to time.

He's thirtysomething now and still knows more about aardvarks than anyone else I've ever met.

I'll have to look into MS CreativeWriter CD for Christmas (or maybe her sister's birthday in Novemeber.)

Half a year for a nine-year-old is forever. This isn't a present you are getting, it's a tool.

 

[Weird Harold]

Half a year for a nine-year-old is forever. This isn't a present you are getting, it's a tool.

Her mother doesn't let me spoil either granddaughter except for Birthdays and Christmas -- not that I can afford to do much spoiling. One of the thngs I've got to check into is whether she's already got it.

She's looked at Harry Potter and decided she wasn't ready for it -- especially after looking at book four's size. I think it's not so much that she couldn't read it as she's intimidated by the physical size of the books.

She's reading at a 5.5 grade level last time I knew for sure, so she's nearly at the level where anything goes as far as difficulty is concerned.

To encourage her to write, you could ask her to write you other stories, and then buy her a binding kit so she can have more books by her. You can buy them at teacher's stores, and prolly at the discovery store.

DN, I'll definitely have to talk to her mother about a binding kit. Between the two Granddaughters and their mother, there is severe shortage of shelf space at their house -- almost as bad as the shortage in my house.

Asking for more stories might help, even if its just an occasional e-mail story.