Children's writing: continuing a story - by Tia

Thanks for sharing your story, Tia! You have worked really hard on this and it is a pleasure to read. Your task was to continue the story of a person who fell from the sky and landed in the rainforest. You have added lots of setting details and character description to help your reader imagine that they were there. You have also used paragraphs to show parts of the story and how it moves on and also your direct speech helps to move the story forwards. You have included a variety of sentence openers (Luckily / All of a sudden / A year went by…), and these are super techniques to help your reader understand where or when something is happening. Your use of compound colours helps to build a rich description of the place or the character, and your verbs are strong (e.g., stumbled, slicing). You have also used as simile – like a snail. Top job!

Let’s read!

The Jungle - by Tia

Suddenly, CRASH! The plane crashed; I could only see myself.  My hands were shaking, I did not know what to do.  I screamed hoping someone would come quickly.   I looked around and I saw mint-green leaves on the muddy mocha-brown jungle floor.  All of a sudden, there were many animals surrounding me.!  I saw animals, wild animals, there was a coin-grey elephant and two little peanut-brown chimpanzees. Next a caring chimpanzee carried me onto an elephant’s back.

After about an hour upon the elephant’s back, I started to feel peckish. Luckily. we stumbled upon a jungle castle.  It appeared to look like it was formed from the cinnamon-brown bark from the trees and rose-pink leaves. Lions were guarding the entrance of the jungle castle. This made me wonder about who was living inside this magnificent castle. The elephants and chimpanzees took me inside the castle walls. I suddenly saw a lady with blossom-pink hair with a young expression upon her face.

“Hi…” I said.

“Hello! You must be quiet, there are hundreds of poachers and hunters and we call them ‘hoachers’!” whispered the lady.

“Oh, okay, sorry” I replied.  

“Why are you here?” she asked.

I then began to tell her the recent events. She then started to tell me about her life in the jungle and how she was called Bubblegum. I was shocked to learn that she was fifty years old as she only looked twenty years old. She then said I could stay with her in the jungle.

A year went by. Then one morning a whirring noise of helicopter blades were heard slicing through the air. “Look, a helicopter!!” I shouted. 

Slowly, like a snail, the helicopter landed on the mocha-brown ground. The pilot stepped out. I explained to him how I wished to leave the jungle island. I went off to find Bubble gum. She was in deep conservation with a chimpanzee. I told her about the helicopter and how I could leave the jungle island. She said, “I wish I could come with you, but I cannot leave my animals.” 

I understood and I hugged her tightly and thanked her and the animals for looking after me. I boarded the helicopter bound for home.

-ends-