Like Mother, Like Daughters

The other day, Gracie came home from school and said, "Hey, Mom, can I use the computer? I want to work on my book. It's going to be a chapter book."

Naturally, I died from happiness, and ran to my computer, and opened up a Word doc just for her.

A couple minutes later, Gracie called out, "Hey, Mom, how many chapters does your book have?"

"Thirty!" I said back.

She raised a brow at me and snorted. "Well, mine is going to have one hundred chapters."

And ten minutes later, she was asking about where to send her book because she was ready for publication.

Naturally, I died laughing. Especially when I read her story.

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Chapter 1

Once upon a time there was a princess who was feeding her cat. The queen said you have to let the dog out. So she let the dog out.

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Not quite a hundred chapters...

"You know, it looks like an awesome start, but maybe we should call this a practice story, and you can make it a little bit longer?"

So Gracie added another sentence - this one about a toilet.

Annelie has been wow'd by the whole idea of writing a book, so the other day, while Gracie was in school, she said, "Mom, can I write a book, too?"

"YES!" I promptly shouted with glee, and ran to open a Word doc just for her.

About ten minutes later, she called out, "How many pages is your book, Mom?"

"About two hundred and sixty," I called back.

She laughed. "That's not much. My book is going to be one thousand pages."

And a few minutes after that, she was ready to send in her story for publication - competition for me as it's a Sleeping Beauty tale, like mine.

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WOSOPONOTIMSLIPENBUOODEWOZHOMADCHEATIPOIWSANNESAPO
SHEDID

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"What does it say?" she asked me.

"Um. Why don't you read it to me?"

So she glanced over her words and said, "Once upon a time, Sleeping Beauty was home and she ate a poisonous apple. She died."

I was pretty darned impressed. And also very amused, because this is how Annelie reads. She doesn't quite have the concept of spaces-between-words figured out, and though she can read fairly well, she sounds an entire sentence out as a long string of phonemes, thinks about the sounds for a second, and then relays the sentence as it should sound - with spaces and everything.

(kids are fascinating creatures)

After I told her that her story wasn't quite ready for publication, she decided to add another story to her Word doc - a Cinderella tale. This time, she made it as far as WOSEPONETIM (Once upon a time) before she cut straight to the dialogue.

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WOTSEDRELIIAMTTOOTIRDUSHADTAKABRAK

("What's wrong, Cinderella?"

"I am too tired."

"You should take a break.")

and then a little further into the story....

WOOPWOOPZASAGODEEOKWRD

("Woop woop, this is getting awkward!")

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All I have to say is it's a good thing I have two computers, or else I might never have a chance to write again.

Also, I'm pretty sure "Woop woop, this is getting awkward!" is the best line of dialogue EVER WRITTEN.

xoxo,