Little Green Pigging - Part Deux

So it's taken me a few days to blog about my last and final Little Green Pig session. Ella wrote on the LGP blog, so you can see some of the books that the Saddlebacks (7-11 year olds) listed as their favorites.

I focused this session on inspirational books, and how they can shape our own writing. I did more or less the same thing with both groups, and it seemed to work well. I started by doing word association to get things loosened up. And then asked each person to name a book that they love and say why. Ella listed books chosen by the younger group. The teens, as far as I can recall, chose the Twilight Books (a very popular choice), Harry Potter, Now We Are Six, The Roman Mysteries...

I then talked about Skellig and David Almond, and read each group an extract keeping track of words or writing techniques that stood out to them (with the younger group, it was just words). I wrote a list based on their feedback and then asked everyone to write their own story, inspired in some way by Skellig. We got some great stuff back - some exploring Skellig's identity, others going in completely different directions but inspired by flight, by the mystery in the story, by the language. One of the younger ones came up with a funny bluebottle eating creature.

I really enjoyed this session, and generally working with Little Green Pig and the kids. I've done my best to attract the teens to my interview on Sunday with Patrick Ness. And a few might even make it. I hope so, as I've asked them to come up with particularly good questions if they do!