What If Stuffed Animals Were Real?

 

You may know the wonderful story, "The Velveteen Rabbit," by Margery Williams. Its subtitle is "Or How Toys Become Real." In that story, a child's beloved stuffed animal becomes a real rabbit through the power of love.

 

What if that happened all the time? What if YOUR stuffed animals could become real?

 

In your After School Treats writing notebook - a simple spiral notebook will do -- make a list of all the stuffed animals in your toy box, room, basement, closet or wherever else you have them. Skip four or five lines between each listing, because you're going to be doing some writing about each animal.

 

Once you have your list, go through and give each one a name, a chief characteristic ("happy," "cuddly," "curious," "strong"), and a setting, or place where the stuffed animal might want to live. Maybe it would be a particular building, park, neighborhood, city, state, region, or geographical feature such as a mountainside or shoreline.

 

Now go through the list and invent a one-paragraph story about how that stuffed animal has become alive and has an adventure. Work the characteristic and the setting in to your short story. Maybe your stuffed penguin, "Pootsie," is very clumsy, and loves living in Hawaii, but slipped down a mountainside and landed on a surfboard on a fast-moving wave. She wished very much that she still lived in Antarctica, because there, most of the water is FROZEN and it doesn't MOVE!

 

Have fun writing about your stuffed animal friends. Next time you hug them, look closely. It worked in "The Velveteen Rabbit." Maybe your story will work for them!

By Susan Darst Williams • www.GoBigEd.com • After School Treats 008 • © 2006