How to write creative picture book reports

Hi! Future Ticia 2024 here, and I’m updating this old Homeschool Writing lesson to make it a bit more useful. At the time I jotted down a few ideas on how to write creative picture book reports, but I didn’t really organize this well, and no one has probably read this for years, and it has some great ideas that people can use to help their early writers learn to write better and do more. So now I’m going to give you back to past Ticia 2013, and I’ll pop in from time to time to clarify a few things.

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What you need for creative writing picture book reports

This is a future Ticia addition, past Ticia just threw out ideas and didn’t really say what you needed

Most of these are going to be completed with paper (composition notebook, copy paper, notebook paper, scissors, and whatever coloring supplies you like to use (markers, crayons, coloring pencils)

Back to past Ticia 2013 and writing creative picture book reports

We read a lot of picture books for our geography studies.  A LOT.  For California my library has over 20 books we can go through.  For Wisconsin there were about 10 or so books.

 So, we do a lot of “book reports.”  They’re never formal or lots of work, but they are based off of the book.

First, make sure you’re familiar with the book.  Usually, I will read the book to the kids, and then they will get a chance to read it again and study the pictures as they’re writing their report.

Look for a creative angle for your report

Look for your creative angle.  The Giant Ball of String tells how a Wisconsin town took back their stolen ball of string from another town.

Our creative angle this time: First we wrote how they did it, then they created something out of string and wrote a description of it.

Look for what’s unusual in the book.  We’ve taken a small detail and written about it,  what was packed on the wagon train, a girl’s letter to President Lincoln, the chinking in the log cabin (can’t find that post).  Then go from there.

It doesn’t have to be the straightforward summary of the book, though that has its place too.  Look for the elements of story.

But the most important thing to make it creative and original.  Be you.  Don’t just be a carbon copy, be you.

Future Ticia’s specific suggestions for unique picture book reports

Okay, you saw what past Ticia 2013 wrote, and that’s good advice, now I’m going to give you some more generic advice as a list of 10 suggestions:

1. create your own version of the story
2. write a description of a character of the story
3. create a unique version an event in the story
4. take one aspect of the story and change it
5. take what made the story unique and use that for inspiring an idea
6. create a recipe for a food in the book
7. write a letter to a character in the book
8. change the gender of a character and see how that changes it.
9. Write down who the most important detail you found.
10. Write about your favorite side character.