Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

Pokinitis

By

So we’re driving to the airport, Tess and I, to start our most excellent weekend adventure to South Dakota. Tomorrow, it’s horse shows, Sunday, Rushmore and Custer, Monday back home after a presentation.

We’re cruising down the interstate and all of a sudden she pokes me from the back seat.

“I can’t help it,” she says. “I have to poke someone every thirty minutes.” She laughs, and I put a fake frown on my face.

But then, I start thinking.

“Hey Tess,” I say. “Remember how we talked about maybe you and Tucker writing books and then being able to send them out for Christmas presents?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, you know, that could be a pretty fun story to make into a book.”

Her faces scrunches up in the rear view mirror. “What? About a girl who has to poke people?”

“Yeah,” I say, with more than a tinge of enthusiasm. “Like, maybe it’s a disease or something, like the flu.”

She looks out the window. “Like the 24 hour-flu,” she says and smiles. “Like Pokinitis.”

I laugh. “Pokinitis,” I say. “Perfect. Maybe she wakes up with Pokinitis…”

“Yeah, and can’t help but poke her mom and her dad and her little brother…”

“And maybe her teacher,” I say. I can see this. It’s got potential. I look in the rear view to see if she feels it too.

“Hey Dad,” she says after a moment. “Could we really make this into a book? Like a real book?”

“Absolutely,” I say, thinking about George Mayo and Lulu and how cool this could be.

“I already wrote a book, you know,” she says.

“I know. You know how many people have read it by now?”

“How many?” she asks.

“Over 1,700,” I say, and I see her face brighten.

“Really?”

“Really. But we could turn Pokinitis into a book that people can put on their bookshelves.”  She looks out the window and the cars passing by.

“Maybe she goes to the school nurse and pokes her too,” she giggles. I laugh.

“So what do you think? You want to try to write it? On the plane maybe?” I’m hoping.

“Maybe…we’ll see.” I deflate a bit.

“You know what else?” I say. “You could write it, draw the pictures for it, and then when it’s all done, we could make a movie of it with you reading it so other kids could even listen to it.” Oy, I think. Overload. The curse of being so invested in all of this. But she’s thinking about it.

“We’ll see,” she says. “We’ll see.”

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Comments

  1. AllanahK says

    That is just so cool. I just love the way kids say, “We’ll see,” with sort of enthusiasm about things they think are somewhat ordinary but are actually at the crest of the new wave.

    Communication across the globe has become ordinary for my class and I think I will need a Skype call from an alien life force for them to think it might be particularly awesome. LOL

  2. Brian Crosby says

    Will!!!! – Don’t give away her idea!!!! Now someone might steal it!
    Hmmm … Monday I could assign it to my students … we could pick the best one … shoot video … Hmmm … ; )

    Don’t worry Tess … we’re WAY too busy already.

  3. Tim Goree says

    In the vein of Jim Carrey’s “Liar, Liar”, I could totally see him waking up with Pokinitis in a new movie and turning it into all kinds of humorous in interesting situations! If you guys to run with this, someone else definitely will…

  4. Monica Rysavy says

    Hi Will!
    We met briefly at the DCET conference in Dover on the 19th. I just wanted to tell you again how much I enjoyed your keynote and sessions! You have reinspired me to blog again (hence my rather empty blog, I’m getting it up and running this weekend), and I’m working on getting my Mom to start one as well. Tales from the Library or something like that, 🙂

    In reading this post about you and your daughter, I wanted to point you to a project that a friend and colleague of mine is working on called “istorybook: storycasting on the web”. It is a super cool project that involves elementary students writing and designs stories, and seniors at my high school pulling it all together with Garageband. Check it out here! http://www.gargoyl.com/istorybook/welcome.html

    Best wishes,

    Monica Rysavy

  5. Susan Sedro says

    Hey! If Tess decides to make it an audiobook or movie, check out the music that opens every episode of the Pointy Sticks knitting podcast. You can find it in iTunes and it will make you laugh. I smile everytime another episode starts playing on my iPod.

  6. readerdiane says

    The joys of being a parent. Where do you think she heard the “We’ll see.”

    Now is the hard part, you’ve planted the ideas and you have to sit back to let the ideas germinate.
    If you push too hard she may dig in her heels. (I have two independent daughters.)
    Good luck.

  7. Julie says

    Will, You and Tess should be on the lookout for some more famous faces while you are visiting the traditional four famous faces at Mt. Rushmore on Sunday. They are filming a movie there this weekend. You might run into Nicholas Cage or Jon Voight. The movie is a sequal to national treasure. Enjoy! See you at the TIE Conference.

  8. Charity says

    I confess: I had pokinitis when I was a kid. It drove my dad CRAZY!!!! he said he would rather I punched him to get his attention that just lean in and poke him ever so lightly to get his attention. It was awful and it was a terrible habit to break too. I guess I just had to grow up and move away and learn how to speak up to get my voice heard.. NOw I don’t have to poke, I just talk louder. 🙂

  9. Joseph Papaleo says

    Hey Will,
    My Year 8 students wrote a book for our Prep to Grade 2 students and then turned them into animated stories. They will be presenting the books and the CDs to the youngest students at our school in the next few weeks. The stories are titled “Little Tackers” and one of the classes even made a Town where other student’s characters are woven into their own stories. It’s been great.
    Cheers.

  11. Jessica Brown says

    You mention that you feel you overloaded her with ideas at the end: “‘You could write it, draw the pictures for it, and then when it’s all done, we could make a movie of it with you reading it so other kids could even listen to it.’ Oy, I think. Overload.” I disagree. You were right with your last comment– she’s thinking about it. A couple weeks ago Bruce Coville visited one of the classes at my college to talk about Full Cast Audio (http://www.brucecoville.com/fca.asp), a company he began that took unabridged books and put them to audio recordings. This is exactly what you were implying Tess does; if she could get her hands on one of these audio recordings, just to see how fun and exciting it COULD be, her learning experience and desire to enhance that would grow. After all, isn’t that what it’s about: Wanting children to want to learn? You’ve already peaked her interest, now SHOW her the options she has.