Imagine both my surprise and excitement when I received this tweet from author Gabrielle Wang who I have been lucky to meet and also follow on Twitter. 

Gabrielle also added that the character is a girl who is different from everyone else in town…

It was our first week of classes in the LRC and the Year 4-6 classes were certainly intrigued when I explained Gabrielle’s request. Voting for the character’s name generated a thoughtful discussion about why students chose Ziggy or Archer. Many voted for Ziggy or Archer name because it was an unusual or unique name to them and so it suited a person who was different. Some people chose Archer because it would suit a tomboy or others thought it was a good name if the character might have been going on a quest. There were lots of questions and wondering about the character which encouraged the students to think like a writer.

It was also an opportunity to discuss the concept and value of ‘crowd sourcing’ because Gabrielle was using social media to ask her readers for their opinions and ideas.

These are the results of how our Year 4-6 classes voted for Ziggy or Archer. It was interesting to see how results varied within year levels…

Gabrielle had also asked some other schools and one school had 70% voting in favour of Ziggy. 

This week quite a few of our students asked if Gabrielle had decided on her character’s name yet so I asked her on Twitter and this was Gabrielle’s response.

The book Gabrielle is writing with Ziggy as one of the main characters is called ‘Hushing Wood’ and it will be published in February 2017. You can read more about Gabrielle’s writing and illustrating on her inspiring blog.

Thank you for the opportunity to be involved in your book in a small way Gabrielle. Good luck as you continue editing, and illustrating ‘Hushing Wood’. We’ll look forward to it being published so we can read about Ziggy in a year’s time…