Mentor Text: Prologue from Life Hacks for a Little Alien by Alice Franklin
Techniques:
- Voice via POV
- Adding detail in unique ways
Background –
I cracked myself up recently.
Because I obsessively open my Libby app to see what books are new at my libraries, I’m perpetually placing holds on titles that grab my interest in the slightest.
And I don’t always read the descriptions of the books very well. Like when I recently borrowed Alice Franklin’s Life Hacks for a Little Alien expecting a fun little sci-fi romp, because, honestly, that’s what the cover made me think I was getting.
And pretty quickly, I realized it was something completely different.
Oddly enough, it wound up being perfectly timed for work in my classroom. We’re studying The Book Thief, and with that book’s unique narrator, I thought it would be a fun creative writing exercise to have my students write pieces using a unique narrator. This book gave me another mentor text for this task – using the prologue where our narrator talks to, well, herself. Self identifying as the titular Little Alien, the neurodivergent protagonist writes to herself.
It’s a fantastic hook that pulls you through the book.
How we might use this text:
Voice via POV – Early in both of these novels, we meet our unique narrators, and it is these unique voices that make each of these texts so damn compelling. Death in The Book Thief and the Little Alien from Life Hacks… catch our attention. These choices are arguably the things that make their respective titles work so damn well.
So after reading the first bit of The Book Thief and the prologue of Life Hacks… we spent some time brainstorming unique narrators whose point of view would be interesting to explore, and we might feel compelled to write.
Though you can see we had little side tracks into the idea of retelling stories we loved from the perspective of another character in the story, we were able to have a really great discussion about what voices would be interesting to hear. I love when a brainstorming session generates an excited buzz about the possibility of a piece. The mentor texts gave us inspiration as to how this might work, and Franklin’s prologue, specifically, allowed us the freedom to focus on the introduction of that voice as our sole task. Though I offered them the option to write a short story, I encouraged them to write a prologue, or introductory chapter, meaning they could focus on establishing the voice they wanted to use, as opposed to plotting a full story. Their unique narrator could introduce themselves, or reveal themselves as they reacted to an inciting incident.
Adding detail in unique ways – I’ve likely shared here before that I like finding ways for young writers to do some of the things they naturally do in an often clunky manner more artfully. I think Franklin’s use of footnotes does this, as footnotes allow the reader a choice of when they engage with the extra material – an immediate pause for it, or a revised reading when they get to the end of the passage. They aren’t necessarily distracted by this additional information.
The further reading suggestions conceit that Franklin’s Little Alien uses throughout the book is a nice button on each chapter. It’s almost like she’s restating the thesis and core ideas of each chapter with a nudge and a wink. (Creating the title must have been a fun exercise – and one that we could have a great time with in our classrooms!)
Polished drafts of these assignments are making their way into my inbox this week, and I should have a full set to mark by Friday. The writers who’ve invited me into their process are doing neat things, with narrators from the animal world, to the intoxicants musicians struggle with in their creative pursuits. I love the happy accidents that reading widely bring into my classroom via mentor texts.
Do you have any other unique narrator mentor texts? How do you channel your writers habit of adding details they can’t imagine cutting, yet you see as superfluous?
Leave a comment below or find me on the socials as @doodlinmunkyboy.
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