Of all the Christmas gifts any of us gave this year, I think this one is probably my favorite. Lee Anna really wanted to make her own gift for each of us but had trouble thinking of something that her brother would like. I suggested that perhaps she could write a story for our little emerging reader. She jumped on that idea, and, inspired by our recent history studies of medieval times, decided that her story would be about a knight named Sir Sawyer.
She didn't want him to know anything about it before Christmas, so she would wait until he fell asleep each night and then sneak out to the computer where she could work on it. She typed every word of it herself (although she had a bit of help with layout and design). She loved searching through the clip art to find an illustration to go along with each page. Our search for "dragon footprint" came up dry, however, so she said, "It's okay, Mom. I can just make my own," and proceeded to design it with the line tool in microsoft word. It's a pretty good likeness, too. Looks like all the dragon footprints I've ever seen, anyway.
She was so excited to give it to him on Christmas morning, and he was equally excited to receive a real live book that was all about him! It has been read many times over, and even adapted into a stage play (check out the short video clip after the story text). We're still waiting for a film studio to call and ask for the movie rights--I'm sure it will happen any day now. You can click on the pictures of each page to make them large enough to read. Enjoy!
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