Friday Reconnect: Week Two

By Oliver Perry, Read to Them staff

Happy Friday friends! We have reached the end of our second week reading Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo. What do you think so far? Consider who your favorite characters were at the beginning of the book. Have they changed? Stayed the same? Who are your favorites? What has been your favorite part of the book, or favorite chapter? Share your answers to these questions and any others you can think of on your Flipgrid page!

This week, we wanted to take a page out of Flora & Ulysses; literally! You may have noticed how some of the illuminations, or illustrations, behind this story resemble the comic book that Flora likes, The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto. Well, today we want you to try your hand at creating your own amazing comic strip!

Your comic strip could come in any shape or form you choose. It could be fictional, or you could illustrate a scene from your life! You could even continue the concept you came up with last week. Feel free to get as creative as you’d like, and to experiment with different styles. Will your comic have speech bubbles? Or will it have captions? Will you do it on construction paper, or color in each box? Maybe you even want to make it on the computer?

However you decide to create your comic strip is up to you. Who knows, you may not want to stop with one strip: you may want to make a whole comic book! Whatever you do, make sure to share it with your fellow readers on your Flipgrid page, so we can all see the awesomeness you create. In your Flipgrid video, make sure to introduce the characters, the story, and tell us where your inspiration came from.

As always, we leave you with a handful of illuminated writing prompts to get your brains moving:

• Who is your favorite superhero, and why? Once you’ve written a few sentences about them, now tell us what your perfect superhero would be like. Give them a name, tell us about their personality, and don’t forget to describe their powers!

• Take the role of life coach. Flora is in a sticky situation with her parents where we left off; what advice would you give her? Come up with at least three things you think that Flora can do in her situation, and explain why they would help.

• Ulysses is certainly a very special animal friend. Do you have a special animal in your life? If so, tell us all about them and why they mean so much to you. If not, what would be your ideal pet or animal friend, and why?

• Dr. Meescham says that, “Cynics are people who are afraid to believe.” What does it mean to believe in something? Is there something you believe in? What is it? Why do you believe in it?

• Go back to your favorite chapter so far, and tell it from a different perspective. Will it be Dr. Meescham, William Spiver, Phyllis or George Buckman, or even Ulysses. Remember to consider the character’s personality, their position in the story, and what they say and do in the chapter when rewriting.

We'll see you next time to kick off our final week with Flora & Ulysses, we can't wait to see your comics. If you post them on social don't forget to tag us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Happy sketching!