Back in April, the boys both entered an essay writing contest through the local public library. The topic/title of the essay was “What I Liked About {title of book} and What I Would Change About It.”
Seahawk chose Bone: Volume 6. Munchkin chose Elmer and the Dragon. In addition to the topic of the essay being assigned, there were also word count restrictions, which were assigned based on age/grade. Seahawk, being in 4th grade, had to have between 100 and 200 words. Munchkin, in 2nd grade, was to write between 50 and 100 words. Here are their essays. Munchkin:
I read Elmer and the Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett. I liked the part where The Canary King was sick of curiosity. In that part, Elmer got a secret treasure chest. That’s what the King was so curious about. He wondered what was inside it. I really liked it. I also liked the part where Elmer and The Dragon were on Tangerine Island. I would change the ending. I would have ended it with Elmer saying good-bye to the Dragon.
Seahawk:
I read Bone Volume 6: Old Man’s Cave. It is not the best book Jeff Smith has ever written. It was sort of cool though. I liked it because it tells you who The Hooded One is. It is very chaotic. Everyone is deciding who to choose for their team, and meanwhile Phoney Bone is making bad decisions. His decisions are causing the other characters to hate him. I would change the fact that Rock Jaw the huge lion is trying to kill Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone and capture Thorn. Instead of this, I would have Rock Jaw on their team. That way, they could all work together to beat The Lord of the Locusts. Overall, I liked the book – in fact, I love the whole series – but this one little change would have made this volume better in my opinion.
A few days after we submitted their essays, I got a phone call letting us know that Seahawk had won 3rd place in his division! We were very proud of him. The library had a ceremony the first week in April where all of the winners had the opportunity to read their essays. There was also a local published author there who made a presentation, which I found interesting. (Her topic was “where do authors get their ideas?”) On top of bragging rights, he won a gift certificate that was good at any number of stores in town; the only catch was that it all had to be spend at one time, at one store. After a trip to the toy store yielded no satisfactory results, he decided to take his prize to the bead store. In the past year or so, he’s decided that he really likes beading. Unfortunately for him, I don’t really know how, so I can’t teach him beyond a single strand threaded version. But that’s okay – he’s happy with that for now. And as he improves, we’ll get him some library books to learn more. The gift certificate was for $10, which as you might imagine bought a lot of beads! The first thing he made was a bracelet for our neighbor across the street. She’s like a grandmother to the boys, and her birthday was about a week after the essay celebration. 
He has plans to make a bracelet for each of his “real” grandmothers, too (my mom and Will’s stepmom). We’d hoped to have them done for Mother’s Day, but that didn’t happen. Will’s stepmother is recovering from surgery, so perhaps we’ll make hers a “Get Well” present later this week. And my mom has a birthday coming up in August, so that’ll likely be when she gets hers.
Blessings,
Wendy
NIce job Seahawk! And what a thoughtful/impressive thing to do with the beads.