In English, Puddlebridge have been reading The Story of the Blue Planet by Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason. The story follows two adventurous children living on a planet where no adults exist. While the entire book is an exciting and thought-provoking read, our lessons have focused on the first chapter.
In this opening chapter, Magnason describes a remarkable event that takes place once a year: butterflies awaken from a deep sleep within a cave and follow the sun around the world for an entire day. Through vivid and enchanting descriptions, the author creates a powerful sense of beauty and wonder that captures the imagination.
In our first lesson, we explored the symbolism of butterflies and discussed why Magnason might have chosen them as a central image in his story.
To deepen our understanding of how writers create atmosphere and mood, we also read Greenling by Levi Pinfold – a curious and mysterious tale of unexpected growth and change. We selected key scenes from the story and practiced describing them in our own words, carefully choosing vocabulary to evoke a particular mood.
Working in groups, we then tackled the question: How does the author create a sense of beauty and wonder? We gathered evidence from the text to support our ideas and shared our insights with the class.
Our final task for this unit was to write our own descriptive passages, inspired by the imaginative world created by Andri Snær Magnason.
