ACTING OUT

Editor Chanda recruited six Newbery Award–winning authors—Avi, Susan Cooper, Sharon Creech, Patricia MacLachlan, Katherine Paterson and Richard Peck—to write one-act plays suitable for children to read either silently or aloud, or perhaps to stage. He added one quirky requirement. Each play had to include six specific words, one each submitted by the playwrights: DOLLOP, HOODWINK, JUSTIN, KNUCKLEBALL, PANHANDLE and RAVEN. The results vary delightfully. Creech offers a biting and funny satire on the publishing world, with young Edgar Allan Poe attempting to sell his famous poem, and Peck provides a creepy ghost story about a riotous group of kids in a one-room school tamed by an elderly teacher with long experience. Paterson reworks Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Nightingale” into a modern morality tale, and Avi pens a hilarious play, featuring a disembodied voice, about the monster in the closet. Each author offers advice for staging. These would make exciting classroom or family activities, and all stand up well as entertaining reads. A dollop of fun for everyone. (Plays. 8-14)