The Errand by Leo La Fleur
Background
Written by Leo La Fleur and illustrated by Adam Oehlers
Themes: resilience, fantasy, determination, adventure, bravery
Why it's a hit: This graphic novel is fast paced and excellently written. With its haunting illustrations, it is a tense, beautiful story of resilience, one that demonstrates that, while you may not know how you got into a tough situation, and no matter how bad things get, you can always find the hope and energy needed to find the way out.
Cross-curricular links: Woodland environment, mythical creatures
Perfect for: Older readers, Upper KS2
Published by: Simply Read Books
Personal experience
I was introduced to this book during a Year 6 greater depth writing course that I attended as part of my role as English lead. The course was incredible and it left me with so many ideas that I couldn't wait to try out with my year 6 class. The lead of the course was also the lead moderator for writing in my borough and, as luck would have it, she ended up moderating me a few months later!
Summary
You are the chosen one, or perhaps the cursed. Delve into the heart of a sinister forest, where every rustle is a threat and every shadow hides a danger. Your mission: deliver for the witch, survive the woods. Cleverly written in the second person, The Errand puts the reader in the starring role, avoiding spiders with hundreds of glaring eyes, ensuring you get in and out of the woods before the sleeping giant wakes.
Before reading
The images in this book are intricate and chilling. I love to do something called the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, with my class before I read the book. I'll select a thought-provoking picture from the text and they have to write down 5 observations, 4 questions about the image, 3 words to summarise it, 2 reasons why something is happening and 1 title for it. This gets them thinking about what type of text we might be going to read. A lot of predictions are naturally formed here when images from the text are involved! Here are some of my favourite images to use.
The big read
Written in the second person and with perfectly placed line breaks, it creates the feeling of panting and pace as the character moves quickly through the woods, watching for danger and signs that things may turn out alright. I love reading this text aloud to model how to alter pace to create suspense and tension with my voice. I place a lot of emphasis on the second person to really make the children feel that they are the main star of this book. Again, the text is projected onto my whiteboard because the images are essential to really captivating the reader. I often read this book across 3 sessions, leaving the children on the edge of their seat!
Writing sessions
Some of my best writing has come from this text. I love a good hook into a book and one that's worked well in the past is the good old mysterious letter that's been delivered from an unknown source. I know it can be a lot of effort but once you've got that resource, you're good to go from then on. The letter I've used in the past is one I created myself. One from the creatures of the Whispering Woods who've written to the children informing them that they've been chosen as the errand child and that they have to respond with their answer within 24 hours. This hook has always worked well because of the sense of mystery that surrounds it; rich discussions are generated. many debates take place and varied writing is produced. Tick.
For grammar sessions, I love to revise present tense since this book is written that way. I spent a session getting the children to rewrite certain parts in the progressive tenses and the past. They had some good discussions as to how the different tenses changed the pace of the story. Other grammar sessions took place around modal verbs, commands, statements and pronouns.
A typical writing outcome is an information guide for anyone visiting the Whispering Woods. One time, we created a whole class visitor guide where one pair wrote the history of the woods, another wrote about the creatures/attractions and another created the map etc. My class absolutely loved this project as it gave them as sense of ownership over their part in the guide versus 30 pieces of similar writing. Some shorter writing outcomes have been an informal letter, a diary entry and their own spin of the text which I'll display below.
To summarise...
If you're looking for a text that's full of suspense and tension, then this is the one for you.