Giraffes, Talking Elephants and Genies

I've been reading heros by Miss Radcliffe's class at Queensgate Foundation Primary. I found them to be a very amusing set of characters.

Amongst all the silliness, I found a hero with a very touching backstory:

'Simon was not born with any skill, in fact he was born quite a weak child.  When he was just at the age of five, he got caught up in a massive fire and had to sit there watching his father burn. This developed into a giant fear of fire. Then at the age of 10 his mother came down with cancer. So one day, he was popping down to the shop, when he saw the strangest thing, he found a very small fox coloured Tig.  It was lying on the path all sprawled out. He picked him up, got the medicine and walked home, only to find his mum dead. When the young Tig was in good health they became great friends.' - Jamie

As you know, I love silliness. However, even funny books need touching moments. If you include a mixture of serious/sad scenes and silly/funny scenes, then the silly/funny scenes seem even funnier.

Perhaps Simon watching his father burn is a little too disturbing (see my post We Need to Talk About Death). However, I like the idea that Simon's friendship with a tig is strong because he met the tig at a time when he'd lost his mum and dad. This is any excellent example of showing the reader that Simon and a tig are really good friends, instead of just telling.

A frog makes an interesting monster book hero, especially when he's dressed like Emilie's:

'Bob the Frog is a small creature so it’s easy for him to hop around. He likes to be silly like wearing funny clown clothes.' - Emilie

Grace's hero is a giraffe who's not allowed out after eleven o'clock. Sounds like a tall story to me.

Some more effective similes:

'He stinks badly like dirty socks that haven’t been washed in ages!' - Emilie

'When she sees a rat she screams like a howling monkey.' - Anonymous

Chloe has given her hero, Gangsta Grandad, a realistic backstory to explain his weakness:

'He’s scared of escalators but hates stairs and lifts so he is unable to go to places with an upstairs. That explains why he lives in a bungalow. He’s only scared of escalators because when he was younger his mum was killed by an escalator.' - Chloe

Josh has also remembered to give her hero a weakness too:

'Roland has a really bad temper.' - Josh.

Cara has written a very amusing snippet of dialogue about a zoo keeper feeding what he thinks is an ordinary elephant:

'Feeder: "Morning Jeff ready for breakfast?"
Jeff: "Yes I’m starving."
The feeder went into shock! And that’s when they found out Jeff had special powers.'

Steven made me laugh with a funny example of incongruity. His heroine has hair like a long piece of silk and smells like a fresh strawberry. Sounds angelic, right? Well her boyfriend, is a gorilla called Gary! And for some reason Gary always turns up on a surfboard. Random. (I like random.)

I don't know who wrote the description below, but it draws on what he or she already knows about tigs, and expands. It is important that we build our ideas on the ones from previous weeks, so that our story moves forward and makes sense.

'This particular tig has six tentacle legs, nine odd-shaped eyes and hair on his chest shaped like a moustache. He smells like a sweaty football boot and picks his bum. He is also scared of zebras. He can swim really well because his species originated from Portugal. 
He’s extra strong and can fly he goes zooming across the sky and across the sea he goes to the gym and loves football. He’s such a daredevil he can dive through fire, he can lift the Eiffel tower with one hand! He can balance the Eddie Stobbart lorries on his head. 
When he flies, he goes quicker than the speed of light!
Under the sea he has a secret hide out which is like the bat cave. He can hear the people screaming so he shoots up out of the water as quick as he can to go and help the civilian.  He’s a bit like super man and loves octopuses. He has a girlfriend called Alesha from Brazil and loves mountain climbing with other tigs but he’s always saving people from monsters even though he’s a monster him self! But he loves his son Devil fish and loves his girl friend Alesha.'

Ronnie has also taken something he already knows about tigs and expanded. He knows that tigs can fly and has created a backstory explaining why.

'He can fly because he did a job for a genie and the genie gave him a wish and he asked to be able to fly but he has another special thing, he has ginormous ears so he can hear the ice cream van coming down road and he is always the first one there everyday.'

Thanks to Miss Radcliffe's class for some very inventive heroes.