This innovative series is designed to help primary teachers plan focused sessions on the work of popular, well-loved and valued authors, both classic and contemporary. Each book contains a range of activities for use directly in the classroom, covering biographical information about the author; a review of the author's work and a summary of major themes in his/her key texts; key language features of the author; frameworks to help children analyze, evaluate and compare texts, and to develop personal opinions of authors' works; ideas for writing modeled on or developed from key texts; speaking and listening opportunities; drama and role play ideas; and references to video, CD-ROM, websites and ICT activities. Inside each book is a full-color pullout poster illustrating the work of the author, which also has a set of challenges for children on the back. David McKee is an author and illustrator, creator of Mr Benn, King Rollo, and the ever-popular patchwork elephant, Elmer. Building on children's enjoyment of the characters and their adventures, this book presents activities that focus on narrative structure, character development, settings and themes. Most importantly, the activities are designed to make learning about stories as much fun as reading them. Games and activities include: fortunately/unfortunately and chain of events - exploring cause and effect; comparing plots - using a matrix to order information; looking for clues about Elmer - building a character sketch; mapping feelings - exploring character development; time talk and Isabel's diary - understanding setting, sequence and relationships between the two; making a story map - recognizing picture and context clues; comparing the video to the written text; and text detective work using extracts.
