"Night Letters"by Palmyra LoMonaco
Student Edition
Unit 3, pp. 334-349
Realistic fiction has settings that can seem real, but the stories are made up. What details in this Snapshot make the setting realistic?
When evening comes, before the light fails and darkness falls, Lily runs outdoors. This is her time to look at nature before all the creatures settle in for the night. Lily takes her notepad so she can record everything she sees and hears. She imagines that all the creatures and things in nature write her letters, telling her about their day.
First there are the ants. A line of them marches back to their hill. What would their letter say? It would thank Lily for the bread crumbs that fell from her lunch today. She writes this onto her notepad.
Lily watches a hawkmoth flutter from flower to flower, drinking in each one's nectar. The moth would tell her that it visits only the fully opened blossoms, not the small budding ones. Lily writes this on her notepad.
She looks at the large, cracked rock in the tomato patch. She writes that today the rock touched drops of dew and a spider web. Tonight it will look for stars.
Soon Lily sees a blinking light, first on a blade of grass and then in the bushes. Then more and more lights blink on and off. The fireflies are inviting Lily to catch them. She writes their message on her notepad. "Catch us if you can!"
Lily sits under her favorite tree in the backyard. The big old sycamore has many stories to tell. It has told her about buds that burst into green leaves in the spring. It has told her about birds that sing as they build comfortable nests in its branches, and about how silent the tree is when the birds fly south. The old sycamore has told Lily of the winter, when evenings are too cold and dark for a nature walk. But this summer evening, as the sky fades, Lily writes what she hears the tree say to her now. "Dear Lily, Please climb me tomorrow."
She gets up from her seat against the tree's huge trunk. She stands and looks back at the sycamore. She is ready to go indoors now and think about the day and what she will write back to her backyard friends.
Lily is ready to write one more night letter about this day.
From Night Letters by Palmyra LoMonaco. Text © 1996 by Palmyra LoMonaco. Reprinted by permission of Palmyra LoMonaco and Normand Chartier.
1. Think about what Lily does in the Selection Snapshot. What kind of girl do you think she is? What examples helped you decide?
2. If you could interview Lily about her night letters, what is one question you would like to ask her?
3. Find some compound words in the story. Look at the boldface words to get you started. Use one of the two small words in each to make a new compound word. You may want to use a dictionary. Here is a sample: notepad—notebook