It's lucky my motel is across the road from Taumarunui School. There was no chance of me getting lost, not like the previous day when I followed the map given to me by the Information Centre, which supposedly had Ngakonui Valley School, and the road I should take, marked with a highlighter pen. I ended up in the middle of nowhere. I don't blame them. I've been lost before. That's why I always do a trial run before the day.
Kathryn Munro at Taumarunui School introduced me to the staff at their lively staff meeting. I think Bethwyn, the Principal is worried she may see her staff and comments in one of my books one day. But it's okay, no one will recognise themselves (scribble, scribble, frantic note-taking).
I met the children in the library. They're going to write short stories over the next two weeks, so we introduced ourselves and talked about what we like about our favourite stories. There are a lot of fans of Geronimo Stilton out there! I read part of A Hairy Tale, my favourite of all of the books I've written, then we did an exercise where we mixed up adjectives/verbs and nouns so that we had unusual combinations like carnivorous grandma, exploding grass, pooping spaceship and kissing lion and brainstormed all of the possible actions and reactions. Everyone came up with some real gems at this stage. Naomi had a beautiful first line. Turehou seemed to have a fully-formed story emerge in his head - how did he do that? Paul (a teacher) helped Piripi and Samuel by asking them lots of questions. I think that's how the 'battle with the dung beetles' cropped up as a scenario (lovely!)
Out at Manunui School, the kids are incorporating whakatauki into their stories. The kids have already brainstormed about what's involved in 'living well.' They came up with concepts like self-esteem, resilience, confidence, and the importance of friends and mentors. I read one of my favourite books to them - Officer Buckle and Gloria, by Peggy Rathmann. On the surface it's about a policeman who gives boring safety speeches in schools, until he gets an unusual dog called Gloria to help him. Deep down it's a story about how we all do better when we have a buddy. It's also a great example of how much sub-text there is in stories.
The challenge is how to write great stories that have deeper meaning about things like friendship. This isn't as easy as it sounds. I'm still learning about that myself. So instead of thinking about friendship, I decided to get out my story-starter cards, which have pictures on one side, and questions on the other. Jimmy brainstormed really fast about a Magical Tanny - a beast that looked like it had escaped from a Harry Potter or Percy Jackson story. Everyone ended up with great ideas splattered onto paper. There were watery portals, spy planes and evil rabbits. Now they need to figure out which are the ideas that they want to pursue and mould into a story.
Ideas and the shape of things may change when we look at structure and plot. Mine change constantly.
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