The Pears
Written and Illustrated by Sachiko Walker
Once in a school called NIS, there was a girl called Sachan. She loved to climb poles, talk to her friends, and eat pears. If you are wondering, this is where the story begins.
One day Sachan’s dad packed
some pears for her snack. One of them was so long that it looked like a pear queen, if there is such a thing. While Samantha was walking to school she heard something saying, “Let’s play with the boys and girls at school and eat things.” Samantha looked around. She didn’t see anything. (It was the pears.) Then she heard the same voice say, “SHhhhhhhh!” (It was the one that looked like a pear queen who said it.)
Soon it was snack time. When Sachan opened her snack box, the pears jumped out, running
every where, saying, “What can we eat? What can we play?” over and over again. Everybody looked at Sachan. Blushing, Sachan just ignored them. Then Sachan said in a loud voice, “Get them!!!” By the time snack time was over, Sachan and her friends had put all of the pears back in Sachan’s snack box. It was hard work.
When it was lunch time, 
Sachan didn’t have a lot of lunch. So after she finished her lunch, she decided to eat the pears. When she opened her snack box, the pears came out in front of her and said, “What can we eat this time?” Sachan looked at the pears angrily, and said furiously, “You will get nothing to eat.” The pears looked at her, surprised. But the one that looked like the pear queen was still smiling. Sachan looked at her feistily and asked with her arms on her hips, “Why are you still smiling?” The pear replied slowly,“I can not frown, even if I am sad.” After the pear said that, a tear rolled down her face. Then Sachan said, in a small voice, “Sorry!” Then in her usual cheerful voice said, “I will not eat you. What do you want?” The pears replied cheerfully, “We want to eat some food.”
Sachan told this to the whole 3rd grade. If you had any food that you didn’t like, you were to bring it to school and give it to the pears, so that they could eat it.
From then on, the pears lived in a tree house. Sachan had made the tree house and placed it high up in the tall tree that set in the middle of the courtyard where the children played. Each day would come down from the tree to play with the children during recess. The pears lived happily ever after.
THE-END
Very nice. Is there some Japanese connection with fruit or is this just your daughter’s thought process?
It is my understanding that they had complete freedom to come up with and write whatever they wanted. I did pack pears in her lunch box that day as her snack. They weren’t talking when I cut them up and put them in the container. But apparently they were good enough to inspire her story.
Enjoyed Samantha’s storyand I’m pleased that she has the talent and imagination to write.Hope she will continue to do so!
What a delightful story. Show Samantha undertands many of our human emotions – from the not so kind to the very compassionate. She is remarkably mature for age 8. She has her father’s writing talent and therefore needs to be encouraged to continue to develop her skill and her wonderful imagination.
Aunt Cindy
Dear Brian and Samantha- a student who was passing by in my classroom started talking about his fascination with Japan. I immediately thought of you two and pulled up this blog. He was impressed with this particular page Samantha. Just wanted you to know that kids everywhere are observing your daily activities! He is also interested in discovering a great website that would enable him to learn Japanese. Do either of you know of a site that might be helpful to this seventh-grader?
Happy Tuesday/Wednesday
Margaret
Learning Japanese? Wow, that sounds like something I should try! A quick search on Google should pull up some options. About.com has some respectable starting points. If you seventh grade student is inquiring because of an interest in manga, I should point out that Japanese manga are like graphic novels originally written in English, which to say, full of slang. So you are aren’t going to find traditional lessons that deal with that manner of language. Again, a Google search will give you some starting points to understanding manga.
Hope this helps,