43 Into the Future with Erin Bow
Erin Bow is a physicist turned poet turned children’s novelist, and author of the dystopic The Scorpion Rules, awarded the 2016 CLA Book of the Year for Young Adults. In it, Bow introduced readers to Greta Stuart, Duchess of Halifax, Crown Princess of the Pan Polar Confederacy, and hostage to peace. Her nation—in a world four centuries in the future—is on the brink of war. If it tips over, Greta’s life will be forfeit. Today Bow shares her much buzzed-about companion novel, The Swan Riders, in which Greta has become AI. “It’s a meditation on what it means to be human, and what it doesn’t mean to be human,” says Bow. Big ideas and a richly imagined world will get kids thinking this afternoon.
- The Swan Riders, Erin Bow
Genre writing: fantasy, science
Have students pick an element of storytelling (plot, setting, character, dialogue) and write a short story with that element at the centre. What does a story focused solely on character development look like? Or a plot-driven story? Then pick another element and try writing the same story. Afterwards, have students do a side-by-side comparison of the two stories and record their reflections. What changed from the first story to the second? Which element was easier to write about?