The Harry Potter Effect

Last week Britton had a school assignment to write a Tall Tale.  He was asked to pick a person he knew and then exaggerate parts of a story to make it into Tall Tale.  Britton really struggled coming up with an idea, but once he did he had the entire story written in no time at all.  He insisted on typing it into a word document and the only thing Adam did was help correct spelling errors.  After Britton left for school the next morning his Tall Tale was still on my computer so I read it.  My first indication that it wasn't a typical 4th grade story is when I hit the part where Britton is describing the cabin Adam used to go to as a child.  He wrote, "As a young child in the 1980s he loved to visit his grandparents cabin, though large it was frail and old and it was located in a large forest full to the brim with oak, quaking aspen, and noble firs."

What? Do 10 year old boys write stories detailing the types of trees surrounding a cabin and use the word 'brim'?

I kept reading and found boys "watching apprehensively" and snakes with "venomous fangs gleaming" and summer days that were described as "dazzling".  Really? I don't think I wrote anything with this kind of vocabulary until I was in much older.  Here is a copy of Britton's tall tale:

Tall Tale Enrichment By Britton

THE BOY WHO SHOT

Adam was a young boy with the best aim in his hometown Burley, Idaho.

He could hit a tin can from 300 feet away with a sling, hit a racing horseshoe hare at dawn with a bow and arrow, and because he was such a natural marksman many liked to watch him shoot a target.

As a young child in the 1980s he loved to visit his grandparents cabin, though large it was frail and old and it was located in a large forest full to the brim with oak, quaking aspen, and noble firs. This forest was somewhere in southwest Nevada. Often at his Grandma's cabin, Adam and his brothers hunted for snakes usually with an air soft gun, but they sometimes used a bow and arrow. However, soon after a lot of hunting you couldn't find a snake anywhere (not that he and his brothers hadn't tried). So they hunted chipmunks instead. But one dazzling summer day the boys found a snake, by the looks of it 15 feet long and about a foot wide, it was acid green with 3 banana yellow stripes down it's back. It was terrifying. The snake was lounging by a large, withered oak tree with lots of moss dangling from the bark. The beast was enraged because the boys got too close, and it began to hiss steadily. Preparing for battle was hard as only Adam had a gun; so, his brothers just watched apprehensively. Then the snake charged, venomous fangs gleaming. Adam raised his gun and shot .WHAM! It hit the reptilian giant between the eyeballs and guess what it did.... nothing, it just kept tearing across the ground while Adam kept shooting up a storm. After 7 more shots(all of which hit it )the snake dropped spitting and hissing madly until it moved no more. Then Adam and his brothers ran to tell the story of the snake

THE END

After reading the story I just looked at Adam.  How in the world did Britton know how to write like this? And then it hit me--Harry Potter.  Britton has read all 7 Harry Potter books several times in the last 4 months and now he was mimicking J.K. Rowling's writing style. So, thank you once again, J.K. Rowling, for opening my son's eyes to the art of writing. This was his very first writing project, but from the looks of things it won't be his last.