As I mentioned in the class, Book Week is coming up shortly, and the theme this year is going to be Fairy Tales. For the younger children, this is going to involve lots of activities built around reading fairy tales, and writing fairy tales, and various competitions to draw and paint and dress up. For us, it's going to involve a competition that requires reading, writing, speaking and listening skills: we're asking you to compose an original dramatic monologue based on a traditional story.
So, for example, you might decide to write your speech in the character of The Big Bad Wolf from the story of 'The Three Little Pigs' and explain that you are very misunderstood, and that it was all the pigs' fault. Or you might choose to write your speech in the character of Cinderella, and tell us all about what it's like being married to Prince Charming, and whether one romantic dance and the return of a lost shoe really is a great basis for a marriage.
Choose a story that you know well, and one that your audience will know too. (There are lots of books in the library you can refer to too, to help you.) Your monologue should convey the personality of the character very clearly, both through what they say and how they say it. Please think about this up front - we're not looking for a dry, boring retelling of the story. Think about the 'Shrek' movies, and the clever way they reinterpreted fairytale characters - if you're writing a monologue from the point of view of Prince Charming, you don't have to write him as perfect. You can make it funnier and more rewarding for the audience if you make him more complex - perhaps he comes across as being very vain, or a bit dim, or rather scary. Or perhaps he seems like a nice guy, who's genuinely in love with Cinderella - but from what he tells us, we can infer that she doesn't return his feelings, even though HE doesn't realise it.
We'll talk about this more in class, but I wanted you to have a bit more warning that this is coming up, as it's going to require quite a bit of time and effort to produce GOOD monologues. There will be a competition for the best monologue, taking into account both the cleverness of the writing and the performance itself - so start thinking!
THING TWO
People have been asking about Book Reviews. It's clear to me from the range of pieces handed in when I asked you guys to write a book review that you're not all entirely clear on what's involved, so I've written one as an example:
‘The Graveyard Book’ by Neil Gaiman.
‘The Graveyard Book’ is a children’s novel very loosely based on the structure of Rudyard Kipling’s classic ‘The Jungle Book’. Neil Gaiman is an author who is well known as a writer of adults' horror and fantasy fiction (such as 'Neverwhere', or 'American Gods'), and comics and graphic novels (such as the award-winning ‘Sandman’ series), but he has also made a name for himself in children’s literature. His picture book ‘The Wolves in the Walls’ has been made into a musical, whilst the creepy chapter book ‘Coraline’ was made into an animated movie a few years ago.
Gaiman is well known for working with his long-time friend, artist Dave McKean. McKean has collaborated with him on many projects over the years, from the ‘Sandman’ books to picture books like ‘The Wolves in the Walls’, and Gaiman scripted McKean’s recent animated movie ‘Mirrormask’. Once again, McKean joins Gaiman to provide the artwork for ‘The Graveyard Book’, giving it a signature creepiness.
‘The Graveyard Book’ begins with the rather shocking sight of a completely black double-page spread, featuring the image of an outstretched hand clasping a bloody knife. The blade draws our eyes towards the text, which is very minimal:
CHAPTER ONE
How Nobody Came to the Graveyard
There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.
I defy anyone to read this without being compelled to turn the page and find out more. Turning the page gives us the rest of the man behind the out-stretched knife; he is mounting a staircase in somebody’s house, his face tilted upwards, and a clean white handkerchief is clutched in his other hand. The blade, we are told, has “a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor.” Moreover, “both the blade and the handle are wet.”
With this chilling beginning, Gaiman very effectively grabs the reader’s attention and drags them along into the story of the baby who manages to evade this man and his knife (although the rest of his family have not been so lucky, as the wet blade demonstrates). The baby toddles out of the house and into the nearby cemetery, where he is very lucky to have the local ghosts take pity upon him and protect him from the man with the knife. The ghosts – and their friend Silas, whom we are never explicitly told is a vampire – adopt the child, give him a name, and raise him among the gravestones. But Bod (as the ghosts name him) is a living boy, and naturally over the years he grows and he grows, and so does his curiosity, until eventually he wants to make his way out into the world of the living. And out in the world of the living, the man with the knife still waits…
There is a rather grotesque and dreamlike quality to Gaiman’s writing, and yet at the same time it's very rooted in the little details of the everyday world. The parallels with Kipling's 'Jungle Book' are clear - in both books, we have a lost child being saved and raised by unlikely nonhuman creatures, and being given honourary citizenship of a world normally closed to humans. In 'The Jungle Book' this is the world of wild animals, whilst in 'The Graveyard Book' it's a world of ghosts and supernatural creatures. However, there are also echoes of JK Rowling's famous 'Harry Potter' books in this basic structure of a baby who survives the murder of his parents, and who grows up under magical protection from his enemies. There the similarities stop, though, for Gaiman is a very different kind of writer from Rowling, and this story is both more intimate and more universal than the 'Harry Potter' books. It has more of a timeless, fairytale quality, even though the setting is quite a lot more mundane and less whimsical than Rowling's wizarding world.
This is a story full of ideas and images that will stay with you long after you close the pages. Although it’s aimed at children, Gaiman doesn’t patronize his readers or spell everything out for them – he expects them to ask questions, and to read between the lines. We have to figure out for ourselves what Silas might be, who the Grey Lady is, and what exactly is strange about Mrs Lepescu.
The hero of the story - the baby who so narrowly escapes death in the opening chapter - is named Nobody Owens, also known as Bod. Essentially this is a story about rites of passage, a story about growing up and finding yourself - probably the oldest theme in literature, but one that remains fresh and relevant to every generation. Although Gaiman doesn't write in the first person, he still shows us the world mostly from Bod's point of view. Sometimes we can work things out that Bod doesn't know himself, because of clues that Gaiman gives us in the text. We get to know the various other inhabitants of the graveyard through Bod too. Mr and Mrs Owens, the childless ghosts who adopt him, are perhaps the most clearly described, along with the angry little witch ghost, and Silas, who is not a ghost, but Gaiman gives us a clear sense of many minor characters through his vivid descriptions and his use of distinctive dialogue. Unlikely as it seems, the graveyard (like the jungle, in Kipling's 'Jungle Book') comes across as a rather wonderful place to grow up: not without its dangers, to be sure, but still a warm, exciting, comforting place in many ways.
Gaiman doesn’t always take his stories where you think they might go – he’s a fiercely original writer, and he isn’t afraid of frightening his readers, or of breaking their hearts. I know this all too well from some of his other stories, and although ‘The Graveyard Book’ is much less gruesome than Gaiman’s adult literature, it successfully mixes joy and darkness in the same way that I’d expect. I was rather surprised by the ending, and a little saddened, but I still found it very satisfying.
‘The Graveyard Book’ won both the Hugo and the Newbery awards in 2009, as well as the 2010 Carnegie Medal and the Locus Award for YA novel. On the whole, I think that most of these were merited – although I confess that I do find it difficult to believe that it would have ever been considered for the Hugo (a prize awarded for the best SF or Fantasy achievement) had it not been written by well-known SF/Fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman. This is not my very favourite of Gaiman's works, because it would take an awful lot to top 'The Sandman' or 'American Gods' in my affections, and I'll always have a soft spot for 'The Wolves In The Walls'. Nevertheless, I think that this is an excellent book for younger readers - at least as good as 'Coraline' - and the images and language linger in one's memory long after the covers have been closed.
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(The only reason I coloured this in blue was to make it stand out from the rest of the blog - I know you guys are too smart to start writing all your assignments in blue, but I still feel like I should mention it, just to be on the safe side. Nothing personal.)
I'm not trying to set this out as The One True Way To Write A Book Review; there are lots of good ways to write a book review. However, I did take care to include an introduction, to give some background details about who the writer is and when the book was written, to outline the plot, introduce the characters and explain how I felt about the book and why. That's mostly what I'm expecting at this point - that you can give your reader an idea what the book is like, and whether you liked it or not, and WHY. You need to substantiate your points by referring to the text, rather than making general points. If you include quotations (which is always a good idea) please put them inside speech marks. Whenever you mention the title, remember to indicate that it's the title in one of the appropriate ways.
What I AM wanting to see: reports that mention who the author is; reports that consistently indicate the title (using inverted commas or underlining or italics); reports that refer to the author either by his/her full name, or else by their surname, but NOT by their first name alone; reports that give me an idea of what happened in the book; reports that give me an idea of what the characters are like; reports that give me an idea of whether you liked the book or not, and why.
What I'm NOT wanting to see: reports that don't mention who the author is; reports that don't bother to distinguish the title of the book (either by using inverted commas, or underlining, or italics); reports that reveal you don't know the book very well; reports that might as well just have been copied down from the blurb on the back of the book; reports that show you didn't understand what happened in the book.
