The Hurricane of Danger

[Mark Robson]

This is a story by my daughter, Rachel (aged 6). I thought I would share it with you as it gave me a few laughs and I feel she's showing a lot of potential as a writer of the future ...

The Hurricane of Danger​

Once upon a time there were some poor people that didn't have any money because of the hurricanes. But there was a Princess who tried to help the poor people. Her name was Princess Diana. She always lived safely at the other end of the country.

Diana tried to help the people by letting them live with her. She normally lived alone because her mother and father had been killed in a hurricane some years ago. Now the weather was getting bad again. Another hurricane was coming. Even worse, a dragon was following it.

This was no ordinary dragon. He was the one making the hurricanes. He made the hurricanes by stamping his great feet on the ground and swishing his big tail. He was really angry because his name was Bonkers! He didn't mean to kill people. He was just jealous because all the other animals had nicer names.

Bonkers was really big. He was eight feet taller than our house, and our house has two upstairs's. Someone had just called him Bonkers again and he was really, really angry! No one had ever seen him so angry before. He wanted to talk to the Princess right now. He was so angry he could scream.

He charged so fast to the Princess's house that nearly all the other houses fell down. When he got there he shouted to the Princess.

'Come here at once! I need a new name. Otherwise I will scream and blow fire at you.'

'What kind of name do you want, Bonkers?' she asked.

At the sound of his name, Bonkers was so angry that he screamed and blew fire at her. But Princess Diana was wearing her magic brooch that shielded her from the flames.

'Don't call me Bonkers. I want to be called Josh, the fireplace dragon,' he screeched.

'OK, you can be Josh, the fireplace dragon if you don't come back and bring more hurricanes.'

This made Josh sad, because he wouldn't be able to see the Princess again and she was really rather nice. The Princess saw that Josh was sad.

'You can live here with me in the castle on one condition,' she said. 'You must let me get all the people back to their homes safe and sound before you can live with me. And you must promise not to sneeze in my direction.'

Some time later, they were living in the castle when Josh had an accident. He sneezed in the Princess's direction and blew her right out of the window!

The End.

 

[dwndrgn]

Definitely a cute story. Taking after her father I see

 

[weaveworld]

A really good story and well written

 

[Mark Robson]

Definitely a cute story. Taking after her father I see

You wouldn't be biased because there's a dragon in it, would you?

Thanks, Weaveworld. I'll pass on your comments to her tomorrow.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Your daughter's teachers have probably already made up their minds that she is going to be a writer. She certainly shows great promise.

 

[Patrick Mahon]

Rachel's story is pretty impressive for a 6 year old! You don't think she's been learning anything from her Dad, do you? It's certainly more coherent than anything my 7 year old has managed to date, anyway!

 

[Mark Robson]

Rachel's story is pretty impressive for a 6 year old! You don't think she's been learning anything from her Dad, do you? It's certainly more coherent than anything my 7 year old has managed to date, anyway!

To be fair, Rachel made up the story and I wrote it down as she told it. I did use her words, almost entirely without changing her diction. I have found this a great way of encouraging her creativity because she gets excited at seeing her spoken words being written down so quickly. This way there is very little delay between her creating and getting the words onto paper, which in turn encourages her to keep creating. The problem with most young people of this age is that they write so slowly that they get bored with the whole process. If you can speed it up, their attention span is actually increased. It is also great bonding time.

I gave her a word limit on this story - as many as I could write onto two sides of one of her exercise book pages. This accounts for the abrupt (but amusing) ending, as she realised she was running out of space.

We are currently working on a story together which she is physically writing, but this is a longer term project. We just do a few sentences each time we go back to it. I also allow her to illustrate the story when she gets bored with the writing. This very much adds to the fun of the story creation process and makes it special when we start each session by re-reading the story so far. Our current joint effort is called 'Race of the Robins' which was inspired by some of the snow showers we saw this winter. Needless to say it involves a snow princess, (when you're a 6 year old girl no story is complete without a princess in it somewhere!) but it also features a snow ghost and a very brave young robin called Sammy.

 

[Paradox 99]

6 years old?!?!
Okay, so you actually put it down on paper for her, but this was a fun read - a cute little story. She'll have Rowling begging for mercy in a few years time.

 

[Aerin]

"He was eight feet taller than our house, and our house has two upstairs's." - This made me smile.

"Princess Diana was wearing her magic brooch that shielded her from the flames." - This made me smile too. I wasn't expecting a brooch, I think. Capes are more common.

"And you must promise not to sneeze in my direction." - This made me laugh out loud.

She's 6 and already writing stories? I only learned how to properly write at 8, and I doubt any of my stories were even understandable at that point.

Tell her that someone you know is jealous of her writing skills, and very much looking forward to reading anything she writes in the future.

 

[Mark Robson]

I shall be reading this thread to her a little later, so you can be sure she will get to hear your comments. Thank you.

 

[Threddy]

6, thats better than me now and i'm 12, great ending, much better than her dad, no offense mark, don't worry, only joking about the last comment!

 

[dwndrgn]

You ought to collect her stories together into a book. I can think of many kids who'd love to have this read to them or similar. It'd make a great hospital book (you know, to cheer up the kids who have to be in the horribly medicine-scented, fluorescent-lit and sterile halls).

 

[HoopyFrood]

Sorry to jump into this thread at such a late time, but I felt inclined to comment on here! It just made me remember my attempts at writing when I was that age...well, ok, I can remember by first real attempt, and I was...7 and 3/4 I think (you know how important fractions are to a child!) Really, it was just my own version of Snow White, but with only one Dwarf, an angel, and a very lonely monster called James who wanted to play with the dragons, but they kept running away from him!
I loved this story when I read it (shown to me by Mr Robson himself!) and it did make me laugh out loud at parts, especially the ending! This young lady definitely has a huge amount of potential, and I have the feeling that I shall one day be waiting to have a copy of her book signed by her, just as I did with her father!
Nicola x

 

[j d worthington]

Mark, I had no idea this was even on here, so I'm glad it got revived. This little story is wonderful. You say you copied her words, with only minor changes in diction? Then this kid is a marvel! This really is a very, very good story, nice structure and very clever... I loved the ending! Abrupt, maybe, but it did make me laugh out loud.

And I'm glad you have this kind of bonding. That, too, is really, really neat. Cheers to both!

 

[littlemissattitude]

I am also glad that this thread got bumped up, as I didn't see it when it was originally posted.

You must tell you daughter for me that she has written a very good story and that she has great potential as a writer.

The brooch was a very clever detail, as was the description of Bonkers's height: "...eight feet taller than our house, and our house has two upstairs's." That's fairly sophisticated for a six-year-old, I think. And, honestly, I didn't find the ending rushed at all, but quite clever, as well. It's almost as if the story ends, and then we find out something that happened later, like films where over the closing credits they will flash little notes about what happened to some of the characters after the story was over.

You know, I judged a school-sponsored writing contest for 6 to 12 year olds for a couple of years awhile back, and while I saw some very good work, this story of your daughter's is much better than anything I saw from the younger contest entrants, and at least as good as much of the work from the older children. I'm so glad that you are encouraging her to continue writing.

 

[Carolyn Hill]

What a charming story! I love that the dragon didn't like to be called Bonkers. (Does anyone around your house ever call anyone else Bonkers?)

 

[Mark Robson]

What a charming story! I love that the dragon didn't like to be called Bonkers. (Does anyone around your house ever call anyone else Bonkers?)

Thank you, everyone, for this recent wave of postings. I shall read them to Rachel tomorrow, which will no doubt inspire her to write something else to be posted here.

Brown Rat, I've not noticed anyone use the word bonkers around our household, so I'm not quite sure where she picked that up from - most likely from school.

Something I have planned to encourage her writing over the summer holidays is a 'writing treasure box'. This will be filled with different sized and coloured note books and writing paper, together with pens and pencils. It will also have lots of items in it from stories she hasn't written yet - jewels, unusual feathers, strange items of dressing up clothing etc. I imagine she will get quite excited by this ... especially when she discovers that every day she opens it, the box will have subtly different things inside.

 

[dustinzgirl]

Wow. As a parent, I can say I am certainly impressed! Very nciely written for a six year old. Especialy considering how thier minds wander, but she sticks to the plot nicely. I'd give her a hug and a gold star if I wasn't a million miles away!

PS Mark, what a great idea on the box! I think I will have to do that!

 

[j d worthington]

PS Mark, what a great idea on the box! I think I will have to do that!

Mark, I have to second that. With a great dad like that, no wonder she's showing such promise. Is the rest of your family this wonderful? Jeez.... I think I'm jealous....

Seriously, this is a wonderful thing to hear about. Gives a person a lift and a ray of hope.

 

[Mark Robson]

I wish I could take the credit for the idea of the box, but it was actually a suggestion from her teacher. This lady is obviously enamoured with Rachel's storytelling capabilities and is as keen to encourage her with her creativity as I am. I was at the school parents' evening a couple of weeks ago and asking if there was anything in particular that I should be looking to do with Rachel over the summer to encourage her with her school work. It seems that she is progressing well in all areas, but the teacher was very enthusiastic about tapping into the creative side of her make-up and encouraging her with the writing. The box was her idea - you should have seen how excited she was as she was describing the sort of things to put into the box! I wish I'd had teachers that enthusiastic when I was Rachel's age. Maybe I did, and just didn't appreciate how good they were at the time.