BERLIN
PUBLIC LIBRARY
Children's Room
Children’s Book Week Stories
This past November 2007, in celebration
of Children’s Book Week,
the Berlin Public Library worked together with
Pat Anderson, librarian
for the Berlin Memorial School, and
the children in grades 2 through
5, to create original short
stories using “Story Starters” from
famous authors.
A variety of favorite children’s
authors such as Barbara Parks, Lemony Snicket, or Mary Pope Osborne
created an introduction
to a story
or a “Story Starter” which was made available to libraries
all over the country. From this brief introduction, the children
in each classroom let their creative juices flow to plan characters,
plots and clever descriptions all befitting an original story as told
by them, as a group.
The books were “published” and
sent home with each child. Also,
the children were each given the opportunity to illustrate all or part
of their class’s story. We hope to have a copy of each
story on file at the public library in addition to publishing them
here,
on our website. If you would like to read your child’s
story, you must know which classroom they are in. For example,
Grade2R stands for Grade 2, Ms. Romer; and Grade5A is Grade 5
Mrs.
Arneri.
Personally, I want to compliment all the
children in grades 2 -5
at BMS who participated in this project and
thank Pat Anderson for allowing me the opportunity to work with her
during her classes. Working
together to create something original is not an easy task. We
learned quite a bit about the writing process from organizing our thoughts
to editing and expanding our ideas; using cooperation in a group setting;
and working to meet a deadline. The stories are clever and entertaining
and I encourage you to read them all and then reread them all!