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Nancy looked out at the huge shadow blotting out the golden light of sunset in the doorway, and felt cold with foreboding. What was it? She had to act without Joe, right this minute.
Click on a title below for book recommendations; reading, writing, and art information and activities; and discussion questions. • An Annotated List of Suggested Read Alouds and Independent Reads Elephants! An Annotated List of Suggested Read Alouds and Independent Reads by Don Hamerly, Dominican University Graduate School of Library and Information Science Read Alouds: Beake, Leslie, illustrated by Karin Littlewood. Home Now. 32p. Gr. K-3. Côté, Geneviève. What elephant? 32p. Gr. K-5. Gorbachev, Valeri. Big Little Elephant. 32p. Gr. K-2. Independent Reads: DiCamillo, Kate, illustrated by Yoko Tanaka. The Magician’s Elephant. 201p. Gr. 4-6. Fleischman, Sid, illustrated by Robert McGuire. The White Elephant. 95p. Gr. 3-6. McCall Smith, Alexander, illustrated by LeUyen Pham. Akimbo and the Elephants. 68p. Gr. 3-6. © 2010 Don Hamerly Activities for the Classroom: Comic Strips by Marilyn Ludolph, Ed.D, Dominican University School of Education Episode 17 has definitive actions that move you as a reader from one point in the story to the next point...and so, what if we depict this episode in comic strip form, telling the story with pictures, sequentially arranged, using a traditional comic format? A traditional comic strip presents more pictures than words. The pictures are arranged sequentially, and when words appear they are presented in word balloons. What would your choice of major events be within this episode that you would choose to draw? To begin, create an outline or list of the events, making sure that you have them arranged in order of what happened first, second, third, and so on. (You get the picture, right??) Decide how many frames you will need to tell the story. Add dialogue where you think it is most important for each character to speak, sharing his or her thoughts and feelings, moving the action from one frame to the next. Did you know that the space between the boxes or frames in a comic strip is called a “gutter”? It is the space that comic artists leave so that your mind can move you, the reader, from one notion to the next, adding what you know so that you can guess, infer, or predict what will happen next! In order to help you create a comic, log on to www.bitstrips.com - a great website that will help you create your own sequential comic based on Episode 17. © 2010 Marilyn Ludolph Discussion Questions and Activities by Geri Zabela Eddins, NCBLA The title is “the chief distinguishing name attached to any written production or performance.” Each of the authors who are writing episodes for The Exquisite Corpse Adventure provides a title for his or her episode. Story and book titles sometimes are very straightforward, but other times provide a can opener to other levels of meaning the author is trying to convey. Susan Cooper gave the title “Speak, Memory” to Episode 17. Does this title sound familiar to you? Did you know that this is also the title of a memoir written by a Russian novelist named Vladimir Nabokov? Can you guess why Cooper used this title? How does it suit this episode? Is there another reason Cooper chose this title? Hint: Take another look at Lemony Snicket’s Episode 12. The opening line of his episode is taken from Nabokov’s book. Do you think that quote inspired what Cooper chose to write for this episode? How so? (For information and questions about the usage of “exquisite corpse” in the story title, refer to the Discussion Questions for Episode 5.) Boppo returns to his slumber after he unconsciously eats some gingerbread crumbs given to him by Roberta, which leads Roberta to say, “Hoist with his own petard.” Have you ever heard this proverbial phrase? If not, what do you think it means, based on what just occurred? What is a “petard?” If you don’t know, look it up! Also, do a bit more research and try to find out in which play Shakespeare used this same phrase. Can you think of other common phrases or expressions—even slang!—that communicate the same idea? Make a list, and compare it with others. During the memory search performed by Sybil Hunch, the twins witness in the depths of the crystal ball “the monster morphing into the body of Boppo the Clown.” What do you think that means? Is Boppo from the other dimension? What other characters the twins have encountered do you think might be an alien or monster from the other dimension? Have you ever met someone who turned out not to be the person he or she had initially seemed to be? How were you able to reach this conclusion? The episode ends with the group seeing a blaze of light ahead. When Nancy asks what it can be, Sybil replies, “I have no idea. Which is a very good sign.” Why is it a good sign that Sybil does not know what the light is? Reference Harmon, William and Hugh Holman. (2006). A Handbook to Literature. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
For Parents, Teachers, Librarians—Talk Art! Timothy Basil Ering and Chris Van Dusen’s Illustrations for Episodes Sixteen and Seventeen by Mary Brigid Barrett
The Gingerbread House "The tradition of baking the sweetly decorated houses began in Germany after the Brothers Grimm published their collection of German fairy tales in the early 1800s. Among the tales was the story of Hansel and Gretel, children left to starve in the forest, who came upon a house made of bread and sugar decorations. The hungry children feasted on its sweet shingles. After the fairy tale was published, German bakers began baking houses of lebkuchen --spicy cakes often containing ginger -- and employed artists and craftsmen to decorate them. The houses became particularly popular during Christmas, a tradition that crossed the ocean with German immigrants. Pennsylvania, where many settled, remains a stronghold for the tradition.” In the original Grimm’s fairy tale Hansel and Gretel (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2591) the house the abandoned duo stumbles upon in the woods is not made of gingerbread and candy, but of bread with sugar decorations. But by the late 1800’s when composer Engelbert Humperdink wrote his opera Hansel and Gretel, the house of bread had evolved into a house of gingerbread festooned with icing and candy. Read the traditional Brothers Grimm version of Hansel and Gretel to your kids. Share these traditional illustrations of “the gingerbread house” (below) with them.
You may also want to show them a wonderful old animation film of Hansel and Gretel made by legendary animator Lotte Reiniger (1899-1991) in 1955. Ms. Reiniger was a master of the arts of silhouette and Shadow Theater and her short films still hold magic for children.
Ask your kids to think about “the gingerbread house” not only as a visual image, but as visual symbol. Symbols have meanings. What would the gingerbread house as symbol have meant to a child, and a society, in earlier centuries when hunger and famine were daily challenges for a large number of people? What does the symbol of a gingerbread house mean to your kids today; what could it mean as a cultural symbol? Share two contemporary interpretations of Hansel and Gretel with your kids—James Marshall’s humorous take on the story and Paul O. Zelinsky’s more classic version—and compare, contrast, and discuss their illustration styles.
Have your kids take a good look at Timothy Basil Ering’s, Chris Van Dusen’s, and Calef Brown’s illustrations of “the gingerbread house” that they have done for successive Exquisite Corpse Adventure episodes (at top of page and for Calef’s go to: http://www.thencbla.org/Exquisite_Corpse/exquisite_ep15.html). How have these three illustrators depicted the Exquisite Corpse Adventure gingerbread house? Did they take a traditional approach? Did they play with and tease the generic vision of a gingerbread house that we all carry around in our heads? Do they build on the version of a gingerbread house made iconic in the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel? Are they using “the gingerbread house” as a symbol? Are their images funny? Scary? Beautiful? Enticing? Do they make you hungry? (Remember, the Exquisite Corpse Adventure artists do not get to see their colleagues’ illustrations before they execute their new illustration!) Art Activities There are numerous gingerbread recipes—and instructions on how to build gingerbread houses—on the Internet and in cookbooks (your local library is a great cookbook resource). Have your kids sketch a traditional gingerbread house, and together mix and bake flat blocks of gingerbread that you can all cut, assemble, and decorate to match their gingerbread house designs. Talk with your kids about the symbolism of food in our culture—the many reasons why we eat. Do we eat simply to survive? Or do we eat to celebrate and commemorate? Do we eat out of pleasure—or guilt? To reward ourselves, or to punish ourselves? Do we eat sometimes because we are anxious or bored? Do we share our food or horde it? Ask your kids to design gingerbread houses as symbols representing our many feelings about food. Introduce your kids to intriguing architects and their work. Just for fun, have them design and sketch gingerbread houses inspired by their favorite architect. They can do a little research themselves to discover interesting historic and contemporary architects. Here are a few architects that may inspire them: Paul Sullivan, the “Father of the Skyscraper”
Frank Lloyd Wright
Paolo Soleri
I. M. Pei
Frank Gehry
Zaha Hadid
And be sure to look for Timothy Basil Ering’s books in your local library and bookstore!
And Chris Van Dusen’s latest books, too!
©2010 Mary Brigid Barrett
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You can view her Hansel and Gretel and many of her other films on You Tube at: 
