Recently I led a book club discussion for second graders on Polly Diamond and the Magic Book, a tale of a precocious and imaginative young girl who loves to write. She is given a magic blank journal containing a benign but very literal wish-granting entity that will incarnate whatever Polly writes. She thus conjures a new version of her house that is unfeasibly large, transforms her own room into a live aquarium, and other hijinx. Polly very much on purpose transforms her annoying little sister into a banana, and the banana is almost eaten by the narratively disengaged babysitter. That macabre interlude aside, Polly finally restores her home by remembering every concrete detail about the house and writing it all down, setting the scene so clearly that the book obligingly returns everything to normal.
The Six Planes & Creative Boredom
The Six Planes & Creative Boredom
The Six Planes & Creative Boredom
Recently I led a book club discussion for second graders on Polly Diamond and the Magic Book, a tale of a precocious and imaginative young girl who loves to write. She is given a magic blank journal containing a benign but very literal wish-granting entity that will incarnate whatever Polly writes. She thus conjures a new version of her house that is unfeasibly large, transforms her own room into a live aquarium, and other hijinx. Polly very much on purpose transforms her annoying little sister into a banana, and the banana is almost eaten by the narratively disengaged babysitter. That macabre interlude aside, Polly finally restores her home by remembering every concrete detail about the house and writing it all down, setting the scene so clearly that the book obligingly returns everything to normal.