Tag Archives: fantasy fiction

Drops of Life

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The first thing I noticed were the beautiful illustrations in this book. It is was initially drew my attention.

Secondly, I was drawn in by the message described on the back pages.  Here I learned about an organization called ENO (Environment Online) that helps spread awareness and knowledge about sustainable development.  This online environment allows students around the world to share their learning with our global community.  This piqued my curiosity and thought this would be a wonderful resource for teachers and students.

And lastly, once again from the back page, I learned that this story is a well-known children’s play that has been performed in over eighty countries.

With all these positive attributes, I felt I really should have liked this book more; however, I found it to be choppy and unremarkable.  It is easy to envision this as a play by the way it is written, but it makes for stilted reading.  Perhaps something was lost in the translation, but as I was reading through this I couldn’t help but feel as if the dialogue is something that the students themselves would have created.  For this reason, I think students may like it as a play, but will have a difficult time being engaged for reading pleasure.

Some Magic Cuts Deep…Claws

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This chapter books is steeped in fantasy and magic.  Our herione, Emma, is on a journey to find her abducted sister.  The family is worn from doing everything they possibly can to locate the sister that they are desperate to find. Emma finds herself in a fantastical world of cats, being the chose leader of the pride of cats.  As she can’t control her cat-like impulses, she gets expelled from her school and is forced to attend one that has dangerous creatures.  Magic, suspense, betrayal await her as she works to locate and rescue her older sister, who under a faeries spell, doesn’t wish to be found and returned to her home.  Every chaper has a CragWiki.org fact of the day.  This is areal and functioning website, which coordinates with the story.

Write Fantasy Fiction in 5 Simple Steps

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     The “five simple steps” are broken down into five short but insightful chapters. Beginning with “Start With an Idea”
and wrapping up with “What to Do With Your Finished Story”, each step is one chapter unto itself. Each chapter’s
beginning page is a step to be taken when writing fantasy fiction. The step is isolated and the reader’s attention is
drawn to the page by the use of a deep pink, one inch, page border. This visual sign post commands the reader to
pay attention and take note. Within each chapter, assignments are suggested as a way to get the reader to practice
the craft of writing. Each chapter also includes resources to further help learn the craft, such as: a Famous
Fantasies book list, tips (start a daily journal, create maps and word lists for your story), ideas (have different
people critique your work, do your research) and web links (to authors’ and organizations’ websites).
McKay breaks down the writing process into bite sized chunks which allows the reader to work at a slow and methodical pace, or to read in small increments when help is needed. The text heavy book may not initially appeal to younger readers; however, those who do pick up this book may find exactly what they are looking for and find it easy to understand. Teachers and librarians may also find this book useful as a teaching tool because most subsections within the chapters are mini-lessons. These could easily be plugged into a lesson plan and the book as a whole could be used for a unit plan.
Table of Contents, Book Key (for icons that are interspersed throughout the text), Chapter Notes, Glossary, Further Reading suggestions, Internet Addresses and an Index are all included.