Teach-Early-Years-14.1

The narrative structure of a picture book is a lesson in creativity Supertato by Sue Hendra & Paul Linnet 1. Character/Setting: The vegetables living in the supermarket. 2. Problem: The Evil Pea has escaped and is causing havoc! 3. Solution: Supertato traps the Evil Pea in some jelly. 4. Resolution: Supertato returns the Evil Pea to the freezer where he belongs. Dogger by Shirley Hughes 1. Character/Setting: Dave has a special toy dog called Dogger whom he loves and takes to bed with him every night. 2. Problem: Dave loses Dogger, only to find he has been accidentally sold at the Summer Fair. A little girl now owns Dogger, and she doesn’t want to give him back. 3. Solution: Dave’s kind big sister Bella offers to swap her new teddy for Dogger. (Even writing this bit down has made me well up!) 4. Resolution: Dave and Dogger are happily reunited. These stories would fall absolutely flat without a problem to solve! Imagine Supertato capturing the Evil Pea straightaway and returning him to the freezer before he could do any mischief. Or the little girl in Dogger happily returning him to Dave once she’d realised the mix-up. We need the horror of everything going wrong, then the satisfaction of everything turning right at the end. So the narrative structure of a picture book is a lesson in creativity. It takes a new idea, a new situation, a new character, then creates a problem for that character, and then solves it. If we want children to be creative thinkers, not just in their writing but in their approach to life, then picture books provide a wonderful tool for learning those skills. BREAKING THE RULES Having talked about a standard story structure, it’s always fun to break the rules! So in my new picture book with Mike Byrne, Oh No, Flo! , the story structure doesn’t quite follow the norm, because the problem-solver makes things a whole lot worse: 1. Character/Setting: Flo the sheepdog lives with Farmer. She loves helping Farmer do all the jobs on the farm, and especially likes getting tummy rubs. 2. Problem: Farmer is ill, and is too poorly to do all the jobs on the farm. 3. Solution: No problem, Flo will do all the jobs for her! Flo is well meaning but incompetent, so this does NOT go to plan! 4. Resolution: In the endpapers, Farmer and Flo set about tidying up the chaos. So in this story, our main problem- solver is bad at solving problems, and is completely unaware of her own mistakes! The humour lies in young children knowing more than Flo, and seeing how everything is going wrong. This also gives young children a rare feeling of confidence and empowerment because they, for once, know more than someone else. (The same feeling you get when you shout “It’s behind you!” at the panto.) We only get a resolution when Farmer gets out of bed and takes charge again. BE CREATIVE ABOUT CREATIVITY There is a huge body of evidence that shared reading in the early years is massively beneficial emotionally, socially and cognitively for young children. I believe it’s also a golden opportunity for us to encourage creative thinking. Next time you read a picture book out loud, try getting the children to think about the main character’s problem. How else could they solve the problem? What other things might work? I am sure they will come up with some highly inventive alternatives! Oh No, Flo! by Catherine Cawthorne, illustrated by Mike Byrne, is published 27 March 2025 by Templar Books in paperback, £7.99. TOP TIPS FOR SHARED READING OF OH NO, FLO! 1 Highlight familiar language . The names of animals and animal noises are some of the first words that English speaking children learn. When each animal gives Flo a job they start with their animal noise (“Moo! Milk the cow!”). Children can join in with this. 2 Get children to join in with repeated phrases . This encourages children to be active listeners by participating in the story. Every time Flo muddles up a task, children can join in saying, “Oh No, Flo!” 3 Can you remember? Challenge memory and attention skills. The animals give Flo a list of jobs to do at the beginning of the book. Each time, Flo muddles it up (“Sow the sheep!”). Can the children remember what the job should be? 4 Talk about action words & instructions. Each instruction has the same structure of a verb followed by a noun (“Milk the cow”, “Sow the sheep”). 5 Look out for the cat! Cat only speaks to say “Miaow! Stroke the cat!” and “Miaow! Oh no, Flo!”, but Cat is present as an observer in most of the illustrations. There is a lot that can be inferred about Cat’s thoughts and feelings from his expressions and his spectacular eyebrows! Teachearlyyears.com 49