Sharing a Shell

Product Information

With her 2004 picture book Sharing a Shell British children's author Julia Donaldson has a hermit crab busily searching on the beach and in tidal pools for a new home as his/her older abode is no longer big enough. And upon finding a new and suitably spacious shell in which to live, a sea anemone comes along and asks to share the hermit crab's new place of residence with the promise to protect the crab (and of course also the shell) from predators, and then a passing bristleworm also asks, offering to keep the shell clean ad tidy in return (and with the crab quite readily agreeing to basically having two permanent roommates). But after a period of time a bigger shell is once again needed, and while at first the hermit carb, sea anemone and bristleworm squabble amongst themselves and end up going their separate ways, at the end of Sharing a Shell, the bristleworm finds a new and larger shell, and crab, sea anemone and bristleworm once again move in together.

There are many reasons that storytelling and storybooks are used so effectively in the classroom. Visual learners appreciate the mental pictures that storytelling evokes. Auditory learners focus on the words and the storyteller's voice. Kinesthetic learners remember the emotional connections and feelings from the story. I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books. I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs. How is glitter used in the illustrations? Think about the different materials that artists can use and try to use them in different ways. You could begin by playing a circle time game to open discussion. Pass a shell around the circle. When a child is holding the shell, it's their turn to speak. Can the children say what they liked best about the story?

Curriculum

One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading.

I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him). Sharing a Shell is a delightful rhyming book with vibrant glittery illustrations to capture the attention of little eyes and ears. This story highlights the important role that sharing plays in building lasting friendships. The characters work well in a team, each doing their own job to keep their little worlds running smoothly. This story could be a great springboard to a discussion around using our individual strengths to cooperate with one another in a team. The illustrations are bright and eye catching for the children and they loved the glittery look and feel to the pictures. It was nice to have a story based underwater for a change and good for them to learn about what crabs two friends are as not all of the children had seen that type from creature before. Make a video to retell the story. Can you include pictures, narration, music and sound effects? Watch this example for inspiration: The book explores friendships and relationships, of how the characters can co-operate with each other to make a lovely place to live even though they are not the same species. This can be expanded upon to explore the different communities children live in and how/if they work to make a nice environment to live in. Sharing a Shell also highlights the importance of each character, as without each other they are lonely and the shell will be dirty, at risk and unable to move around. Children can then expand on this to see what jobs there are within the UK and the World over and how they assist the people who live there.

Toys

I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married. This is a great book that shows the ups and downs friendships can have but still shows that there's always a way to work through problems. With sharing being difficult for children it is lovely how we get to see the crab facing the consequences of his decisions not to share and the children got to think about what they thought was the right thing for crab to do. Choose one of the animals in the story and find out about it. Can you write a report about where it lives, what it eats, how it might defend itself etc.? Look at the use of punctuation in the story. When have full stops, commas, questions marks, exclamation marks (etc.) been used and why?