When I read The Last Cuentista, it was a totally new genre, and probably new for everyone in the class. Mexican folklore and Sci-fi is not a mix that I have ever encountered. But it was a brilliant book, taking winding turns that I never would have expected. The Last Cuentista is about a 12 year old girl who goes to a different planet because earth is being destroyed. Sadly, her grandmother is going along with the earth. The spaceship is high tech, and will keep them trapped through time for over 300 years until they arrive at the next planet. Little did they know they were trying to erase the kid’s memories and make them servants, like robots. Petra is trying to find her parents, while also trying to use the power of stories from her grandmother to keep the children’s’ memories of earth and their parents alive.

The power of stories is a key concept. She had to keep the stories going, and they were the one thing that lit her up when she was feeling helpless. Keeping stories going is important because a lot of them are passed down from our ancestors and are part of our culture. So keeping these stories alive, is also keeping part of our culture alive along with them.

Coming off of the topic of traveling to a new topic, we were asked to make our own ideal world, our own ideal planet. It was really fascinating to get to make all the decisions. That means, I got to create a planet, even if there was magic, or it was totally unrealistic to let say, earth. I got to create the wildlife, and I chose  to make continents reflecting the four seasons. This project does make you think about what you wish the world would be, and what you wish it wouldn’t be, for example, my world wouldn’t be polluted, and it would have a sunset sky all day and night long.

After we made our ideal world and put it down on a google doc, we made a planet book. We had a guest local artist named Peg Gignoux come and help us create the cover, and press and ink nature into paper using akua ink. We also had a surprise opening in our book reflecting on a scene we could find in our ideal world, and a way to see it. I used leaves that I pressed, and the scene I used was from the continent of autumn. We folded, cut, and eventually, made round covers for the whole planet appeal.then, we put our planet’s name on the cover. My planet’s name is planet Ziabong, named after the luscious ziabong fruit. 

In conclusion, this was a great activity in our language arts class that made us think, and pushed us to make the world we wanted to see, to be creative, and to put ourselves in the shoes of others. I really enjoyed this project, and am seriously considering taking the ideal world to a new level, and even writing a book about it, because you can be creative, and it will unfold in front of your very eyes. Because of this, I encourage you, the viewer of this post, to take at least five minutes, if not more to consider what your ideal would look like. You can think about this anywhere, in bed, a brain break from working, and feel free to jot your thoughts down.