E-Book Store

SPAWN Kids’ Writing Project

May, 2004
The SPAWN kids’ writing project has come to a successful conclusion. Virginia Lawrence, Executive Director of SPAWN, attended the last class and shared information about ebooks. The kids also finalized their cover design and posed for pictures for their book cover and publicity for the class. They asked Virginia and Patricia to pose with them in some of the photos.

After the work was done, the students presented teacher Patricia Fry with a huge bouquet of beautiful flowers, a thank-you card with handwritten sentiments from each of them, and a gift certificate at a local restaurant from their parents.

While the students and Patricia will always have warm memories of this experience, the tangible result of the 8-week program is a wonderful book of the students’ work. Twelve students submitted enough stories, poems, letters, riddles, drawings and articles to fill 136 pages. The 9- to 12-year-olds designed the entire book themselves, from the pages to the title to the cover, and did the majority of the editing and proof work. They kept SPAWN going back to the drawing board with the cover until it was exactly as they envisioned it. The book’s title is "Tuesday Afternoons, Creative Writing By Ojai Valley Homeschoolers."

See the article from the Ojai Valley News.

Thanks to a generous donation from SPAWN member Eva Rosenberg at http://taxmama.com, SPAWN paid for the publication of the book. Fidlar Doubleday Printing is printing 5 copies for each student.

There was a book signing celebration for the students, their families and friends on May 17 at Stir Crazy, a coffee house in Oak View, CA.

If you're interested in articipating in the next course as a teacher, please contact Patricia Fry, patricia@spawn.org.

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11-year-old Katy Barron, a SPAWN writing student, won first place in her age group in the Free The Verse Student Poetry Competition through the Arts Council of the Conejo Valley and the California Poets in the Schools. Here is her winning poem.

Everything Goes Through the Window
By Katy Barron

Through the window, night takes shape.
Streets calm down, silence meets the trees.
Children open their minds to many dreams, unknown.
A hawk finds rest, unseen.
Pinpricks of light on a moonless night.
Towering rain clouds blacken the Earth below,
Eliminating every hint of sky.
Silence doesn’t end when it chooses…

And though one may still sleep, another just awakens –
Closing off one world, only opens another.

Now seeing through the window
Means filtering blazing light from your eyes,
Taking in the excitement of the day:
Skyscrapers through chunks of aquamarine sky into a crowd.
Looking through the window, seeing our falling sky,
Waiting for more…

Dusk arrives, feeling rather tired.
It falls more quickly than ever, not knowing when to stop.
In response, the busy world tried to lengthen its stride—
Blurring highways never waiting for a fox to cross,
While a vulture takes flight, drawn to the smell of decay,
And silence begins, only when it chooses.