Premise: The story is about a little girl named Lennie (Eleanor) , she’s 9 and she lives in the city. The basic principle of the story that I wanted to explore was what it would be like to do the summers in the city, cooped up in a little apartment with no room to play while your parents are at work. This idea is not something we are used to here in Maine.
Possibilities: Currently I’m playing around with a few different ideas, but I want to do something fantasy like and with animals. She’s either gonna go to the zoo or imagine she’s somewhere else.
Story Challenges and Problems: I need to determine how she would get to the zoo without it seeming too rebellious, and I don’t want the pretend part of the story to seem to dramatic and unrealistic. I want the reader to forget that Lennie is cooped up and believe that she is somewhere else.
Designing Principle: The elephant is going to be the main focus of her adventures, I haven’t yet decided if there will be other animals. But the ‘abduction’ of the elephant is a turning point and introduces another main character/friend for Lennie.
Best Character: Lennie is the hero, trying new things and making the most of her time by letting her imagination run wild.
Basic Action: There’s a scene where she navigates the Indian Marketplace it’s really busy and her friend has to show her the way, she gets distracted by the beautiful colors of the Holi and the ideas start flowing.
Character Change: Lennie will change from bitter bout being bored and left alone all day to happy for the next day when she can continue her journey in peace, she’s then excited to get back into her imagination and go somewhere new the next day.
Moral Choice: She has to decide to show off her work painting the elephant, but she has to overcome her fear of stage fright.
Audience Appeal: I think that this kind of book could appeal to a child in her situation, there of lots of kids I’m sure stuck inside little apartments in cities all over the country, cooped up all summer. I think this kind of book would appeal to them.
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