I’ve heard many a time that if you give a young writer tools, they will create. That they have an internal drive to do so in fact. So I have created a most wonderful writing studio for Maddie. I dare say that if Eric Litwin, her favorite author of late, could squeeze into that toddler sized chair he would create some amazing literature. It’s that good.
Maddie has taken to her studio in the way a most eclectic and orderly warring soul should. She creates in a frenzy- drawing, coloring, stickering, stamping, folding, writing, taping, and enveloping her way to creative nirvana. In her wake she leaves a disaster of broken crayons, discarded attempts at drawings, sticker backs, ink smudges, and tape bits. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Delivered to my lap, taped to my wall, stuck in my bag. These creations are what bring a smile to my face. She has a message that one. Whether it’s a picture of mommy with x’s all around because she’s mad at me, a page of hearts with the biggest heart at the end because she just loves me SO much, or a picture of Santa hung on the wall so in case we wake up and see him, we’ll know who he is. Creating is definitely a message carrier for her.
The mommy in me loves it more than I can say. The educator in me is wondering when the words and sentences will follow. She has all the tools. She is prepared. She knows letters and sounds go together to make those things we call words. We tell stories. We draw stories. We know that words carry a message. She just doesn’t care to use that knowledge yet.
Until today.
I know you will all tell me that a young writer will use all that knowledge and be ready to unleash it on the world when they are ready. We are here to nudge and help them discover the wonderful stories they hold within. blah blah blah.
I have the real answer: give that young writer all the requisite tools and then hand her a stapler. Oh, the joy. That stapler is the peanut butter to her jelly, the mac to her cheese, the ying to her yang, the muse to her writer self. She has created no less than four books in the last thirty minutes. There are pictures, there are letters, there’s even a word or two.
All it took was a stapler.
😉
Live, Love, Teach 
Ahh, sweet Maddie. I loved how the direction of your slice changed with that one sentence, “Until today”. Such a clear signal of good things to come! Clever use of words at the end there. Fun to read
Awwww – kids love making books. Would love to see piccies of this writing space.
What a wonderful place you have created for Maddie. Lucky her, lucky you. Enjoy all of the magic!
Really enjoyed how YOU wrote this post. Very creative use of language. The whole idea of the stapler just cracked me up.
I love how the pace of this whole piece picks up at the end, mirroring Maddie’s book-making prowess once she was armed with her stapler. 🙂 I can almost hear those staples punching through those pages!
The stapler paragraph made me lol. It’s the mac to her cheese? lol lol lol. At any rate, we found a precious treasure in my Maddie’s backpack yesterday. Three index cards taped together with some Rapunzel stickers and marker drawings. “What’s this?” I asked my Maddie. “It’s from Maddie Kow-lew,” she told me. 🙂