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By Patricia MacLachlanHarperCollins, 2010
$14.99, ages 9-12, 128 pages
When an author in feather earrings and wild hair comes to talk to a fourth-grade class about writing, the students half expect her to fly around the room, depositing words on them like bird droppings.
Ms. Mirabel isn't like any teacher they've known. She tells them in a soft, hushed voice that words are magical things. They come when the time is right, whispering to you -- "word after word after word."
In this lovely little book, Newbery Award-winning MacLachlan (Sarah, Plain & Tall) goes to the heart of what she feels about writing -- that words are amazing things that can help you discover how you feel and what you need.
As the class's regular teacher sits quietly in the back of the room, Ms. Mirabel tells the students that everyone has powerful words to write and words can even change lives.
Over the course of six weeks, five friends in the class learn to express what they couldn't before -- feelings welling up inside of them or moments that are meaningful to them but they've never shared.
Lucy, Evie, Henry, May and Russell meet everyday after class under a lilac bush in Henry's yard, as the sweet smell of pie drifts from the kitchen where his mother Junie is cooking. There they can lower their guard, lean on each other and think back on the strange and wonderful things Ms. Mirabel's has said.
At first the friends are mystified by Ms. Mirabel's frankness and her unconventional way of looking at writing. She says that what is real and unreal are the same and dismisses story outlines as "silly."
A story can't be laid out in advance, she tells them. "You write to participate…to find out what is going to happen."
At one point, Ms. Mirabel pours dirt from the prairie where she grew up on Miss Cash's desk to express the importance of setting to a story, what she calls, "landscape."
1 Comments on Word After Word After Word, last added: 8/12/2010
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This is definitely going to be added to my "must haves"! Thanks for sharing.