Monroe Library Blog

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Monroe Teen Advisory Board writes a story.


For those of you who don't know about the Monroe Teen Advisory Board, or TAB, they are a group of teens, ages 12-18 or in grades 6-12 that meet once a month at the library. These teens meet to discuss books they've been reading, talk about what's going on at the library, share ideas for improving the library, take part in activities and crafts, and do other fun stuff! Currently, the group is made up of students from Park Place Middle School, Hidden River Middle School, and Monroe High School but anyone between the ages of 12-18 or in 6th-12th grade is welcome to join the group!
At our last meeting, the group and I took part in a creative writing exercise. If you've ever played Mad Libs, it was similar to that, but with a little twist. We began by having the group supply certain details like a man's name, a woman's name, an animal, a job, a problem, a bad habit, etc. We then plugged these details into a paragraph I had previously written, in 'Mad Libs style', to kick start our story. Next the group members each took turns adding a sentence until we completed the tale! I'm going to share our awesome story with you below. The original paragraph will appear in red text, with the group's 'Mad Lib' style additions written in black. I've also listed my co-author's names in colored text above the story. Each author's contributions to the story will correspond with the color in which their names appear in the following list:.
Authors:
Joseph
Brendan
Janey
Cassie
Amy
Silvia
Chuck (Teen Librarian)
'Mad Libs' words
The Adventures of Charles and Bellatrix
One day, Charles and Bellatrix were sitting with their shark named Shredder in the Pacific Ocean when they suddenly ran out of food! Charles has a bad habit of breaking drinking glasses, but nevertheless he and Bellatrix head off to the White House, where Bellatrix works as a Tae Kwon Do instructor, to help solve their food problem. Despite Bellatrix's obsession with teddy bears, they are confident they will succeed!
On their way to the White House, they ran into a fire demon named Lucifer. Two seconds after, Bellatrix confessed that she had psychic powers passed down from her family, and Charles was awestruck with his mouth hanging open.
But then Lucifer at Bellatrix, and Charles thought she died. But then Bellatrix fought Lucifer from the inside while Lucifer ate Charles.
After Charles was eaten, Shredder came to the rescue with Bellatrix's legion of teddy bears at his aid! Bellatrix then uses her psychic powers to send Lucifer into Outer Space!
But before Lucifer goes, he upchucks them and Charles uses alchemy to turn a broken drinking glass into a sword. When Lucifer comes back down, he uses his gummy ray and turns the teddy bears into gummy bears! It so happens that Bellatrix goes 'Donkey Kong', and sends Lucifer into a dark vortex, which turns out to be a black hole.
The End!
The Monroe Teen Advisory Board is still a very new group - we've only been meeting for a few months, but we have a lot fun. If the group sounds like fun and you'd like to know more email Teen Librarian Chuck Pratt at cpratt@sno-isle.org