His first book consisted of 4 pages, and was titled "My Dog Boone".
His second book consisted of 9 pages, and was titled "Iron Man and Friends". It was largely comprised of a picture of an Iron Man and Friends game that Charlie invented.
For his third novel, Charlie wanted to accomplish something big.
45 pages.
(Every other page has a drawing.)
(And the last 8 pages are pictures of his dream, Where the Wild Things Are style.)
He asked for help planning it.
So I helped him create a big storyboard.
And showed him how to create the beginning, then the end, and then fill in the boxes in between.
All of the words and concept are his original work.
And all artwork is signature Charlie.
Without further ado, I give you:
Charles has an Great Day
(All spellings and punctuation are true to the author's original work)
Charles wakes up and goes to the bathroom.
Charles takes off his pajamas and puts some clothes on to get ready.
He has Lucky Charms for breakfast.
He watches Meat the Robinsons on tv with the whole family - mom dad ephram macie and charles
Charles ate mini corn dogs, animal crackers, a cheesestick and an apple for lunch.
After lunch Charles helped his mom pick up. She gave him a high five.
Then the family Planted some orange seedes in the backyard.
they watered the plants.
Charles played outside. He played tug of war with Boone.
then he blew bubbles for Ephram to chase. Macie laughed.
Charles came inside and washed his hands.
Charles played with Jenga Blocks at the table.
Charles had some yogurt for a snack.
there was a storm outside. the family watched from inside to stay dry.
the storm was crazy. Crazy. CRAZY.
Charles colored Pictures and then turned them into fans.
We had Walmart steak with Mashed Potatoes and gravy for Dinner.
Charles got ready for bed.
Charles said good nigt and heard a story. He went to sleep smilling and had a dream about tomorrow.
*Following are the pages of Charlie's dream sequence*
Four hearts linked together attached to strings coming out of Charles' head.
Two hands connected
Charlie says that this is a picture of Charles and Ephram riding Boone like a horse.
The opposite page is Boone smiling.
Apparently, he wishes he was a horse.
Charles handing his mom a heart card, and getting one from her. Their hair is also made of hearts.
The End.
Some thoughts about this book:
- I'm pretty impressed. Charlie is 6 and wrote this in the summer between Kindergarten and First Grade.
- It shows how Charlie mixes reality and make believe.. Most of what he wrote was what had actually happened that day, or what he wished would happen. The storm was completely fabricated. And it was crazy too. I love that it was three times crazy. And we hadn't yet had dinner, so he made that up too.
- The story focused so much on food, and specific foods, that it makes me laugh. Walmart steaks? And mashed potatoes and gravy? Charlie won't eat mashed potatoes when I make them... but he does like steaks. He was so excited about Walmart steaks that it was the first and only time he broke perspective and said, "we" instead of "Charles".
- I love the sequencing. This is a real story from beginning to end. And the order makes sense. Again... Impressed.
- Very little spelling and grammatical errors. Although we can clearly work on capitalizing the beginning word of a sentence. But his spelling impresses me.
- The dream sequence is my favorite. And I love that almost all of the pictures in this book have hearts.
The experience of writing Charles has an Great Day was a lot for our author. It took him a day to write the book and produce the words on his final copy. (There were two copies that he got frustrated with and put in the recycle bin.) It took him an hour on the next day to create all of the artwork. (He's a pretty fast artist.) Now he seems to have writer's block. He has switched to making movies for the time being.
But I'm confident the author will make another appearance sometime not too far from now.
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