CALEB NICKERSON
CALUMET ISLAND
June 7, 2019
On Friday afternoon, students and staff at St. Anne’s Primary School on Grand Calumet Island gathered in the gymnasium to get their first look at a picture book that they had created collaboratively over the course of the year.
Entitled “Hitum le jeune dragon” (Hitum the young dragon), the project was spearheaded by grade one teacher Manon Laurier.
She explained that the students had already been taking part in a teleconferencing program with illustrator Sylvain Blouin, and through him they found out about a project that had already been tried in other schools across Canada.
Each grade level has a part in writing the story, Laurier said, starting with the kindergarten class picking the three main characters (a fox, a superhero and a dragon) from a list.
“First grade we started the story, we sent that to the second grade and they added another part and so on,” she said. “The younger kids didn’t know the whole of the story until the end.”
Through video conferences with Blouin, students were able to watch him illustrate their creation in real time, which Laurier said was quite exciting. She said that he would make modifications to the drawings based on feedback from the children. Blouin was even on-screen on Friday for the book reveal.
Vice-Principal Louise Ricard said that the project was an immense success, and that 135 books would be distributed throughout the school board. More would be available for sale through St. Anne’s for $20 each, or $7.95 for an online version.
