Todd Elementary School kindergartners and first graders should not be bored this summer, having met children’s book author Beth Ferry. Ms. Ferry visited recently and shared a chockful of writing tips, encouraging them to spend their summer writing and reading.
Ms. Ferry, who has written over 35 picture books, met with students and shared her writing process in a way that even new readers and writers could understand.
“As I writer, I only need three tools: a piece of paper, a pencil, and, most importantly, my imagination,” she said. “You also have all of the things you need to write a story.”
Anything can happen when you write fiction, she said.
“There are no rules. I can make my hair turn into cotton candy!”
She shared several ways she gets ideas for her books.
“I pay attention to words because they can spark ideas. Words are cool, they sometimes come from other countries, or they are spelled weird,” she said. “The word ‘’scarecrow is a compound word, which means it is made of two words: scare and crow. I came up with an unlikely friendship story where a scarecrow becomes friends with a crow.”
She also uses word play to generate ideas.
She shared that the ice cream truck, which passes by her house, helped her come up with an idea for a book.
“One day I played with the words “ice cream”, adding N to “ice” and D instead of C for “cream” and came up with an idea of a “Nice Dream” truck that gives you options for dreams instead of options for ice cream flavors,” she said.
She also gets inspired by song lyrics.
“I wanted to write about friendship,” she said. “I heard the lyrics: ‘Can you imagine your best friend sticking up for you’ and I realized that ‘stick’ can have more than one meaning – it can also be a twig, so I thought of a twig that sticks up for someone. This inspired me to write the book ‘Stick and Stone.’”
She gave more examples of what inspires her to write stories, noting that her favorite way to get an idea is reading.
“When I get stuck, I go back to my favorite picture books for inspiration,” she said, sharing some of her favorite books, such as “Library Lion,” “We Don’t Eat Our Classmates,” and her absolute favorite, “Room on the Broom.”
“If you want to be a writer or an author, you have to be a reader, because every time you read, you learn about good writing, interesting opening lines, vocabulary and sentence structure,” she said.
She read to students her book “A Moving Story,” and shared her inspiration for it.
Next, she gave students additional tips for writing, sharing the three steps to writing: coming up with the idea, writing the first draft and revising the draft.
She shared how long it takes her to write a story from beginning to end and how many revisions she makes. For example, one book took her seven years and 167 revisions.
At the end of the visit, students were able to ask questions.
They asked her how many of the illustrators has she met, what is her favorite book that she wrote (“Stick and Stone”) and why she likes being an author.
“When I was growing up, all I wanted to do was read. That made me want to write,” she said. “I hope you read all summer and maybe get to write your own books.”
Ms. Ferry hopes to cultivate a love of reading.
“Reading is the basis of everything,” she said. “Sometimes all it takes is finding the right book. Reading can help in life – with vocabulary, and to be a better writer – even if you are just writing an email.
Ms. Ferry practices what she preaches.
“Right now, I am reading ‘The Inquisitor’s Tale,’ which is a Young Adult book that I read long ago,” she said. “I am also reading ‘North Woods,’ and I read a lot of picture books to learn about new trends and to see what everyone is doing.”
