Mechanics & Literature: January 2024
January’s Dart, Arrow, and Boomerang selections are about characters who encounter adventures and challenges of different shapes and sizes. From heartwarming storylines to white-knuckle adventure, these page-turners are an entertaining way to explore:
- writing,
- mechanics,
- and literary devices with the entire family!
Sow seeds of wonder and curiosity with this month’s Quill—On the Farm! Go on a hunt for noisy nouns, discover who’s who on a farm, and explore eggsellent egg activities with us!
On the Farm
Cultivate your young child’s curiosity with this month’s issue of the Quill!
In the Brave Writer Book Shop, you’ll find books about farmyard fun that we adore! These are not required (you can use any books about these topics that you have in your stacks or discover at your library), but we find it’s helpful to have a list to get you started.
In this Quill, we’ll:
- notice a number of nifty nouns;
- wonder who, what, why, where, when, and how;
- interview an animal and practice some mooo-ter skills;
- have an eggciting time with dots, lines, and curves;
- crow with glee over counting games;
- and we’ll cock-a-doodle-do a bit of skip counting!
Get the Quill.
Just Beyond the Very Far North by Dan Bar-El
Enjoy an adventure with Duane the polar bear and his arctic friends in this charming sequel to The Very, Very Far North (Note: No need to read the first book before jumping into this Arctic adventure, but if you want to, we have a Dart for that one too!).
This month’s literary device focuses on Personification and Anthropomorphism. We’ll also:
- tuck dialogue between quotation marks;
- plop capital letters into place in proper nouns and sentence starters;
- fall for figurative language;
- ponder prepositions;
- enjoy a bit of juxtapositioning;
- discover characterization through dialogue; and so much more!
Get the Dart.
Honestly Elliott by Gillian McDunn
Meet Elliott, a big-hearted kid, who is doing his best!
January’s literary device is First-Person Narration. We’ll also:
- use similes to make comparisons as smooth as butter;
- sneak up on the superscripts that lead toward footnotes;
- find out why figurative language is a writing superpower;
- dish out dialogue punctuation;
- sample sentences that are interrogative and declarative;
- ponder pronouns; and so much more!
Get the Arrow.
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
This Victorian classic is a touchstone in the science fiction canon—Martians and Mars, oh my!
In this Boomerang, we’ll:
- ponder point of view;
- get inside editions;
- get behind the wheel of plot-driven versus character-driven stories;
- situate this book in context;
- appreciate how science fiction can use realism;
- discover descriptive writing; and so much more.
Get the Boomerang.
For ages 15-18, check out the Slingshot.
