The Adventures of Little O

Who or what is

?

These five stories are the winning entries of The Spark Children’s Arts Festival 2010 storywriting competition. Over 150 children, all between the ages of 7 and 12, wrote a story about The Adventures of Little O – but who or what Little O might be was left entirely up to the writer. The winning five stories give a flavour of all the rich and imaginative interpretations that were sent in, as Little O takes on a different form in each story.

The stories have been illustrated by Btec and ‘A’ Level graphics students from St Paul’s School in Leicester, with support from Leicester-based illustrator Joe Wilson. Their different styles reflect the many Little O’s .

Joe has created a beautiful cover for the book – with 27 objects beginning with the letter ‘O’.

Can you name them all – including the tricky French one? Answers are inside the back cover!

The Spark Children’s Arts Festival is an annual festival of theatre, dance, music and visual arts for children, which takes place in Leicester and Leicestershire every summer. It provides thousands of children each year with the opportunities both to watch professional work and to create art works themselves. The storywriting competition gives children a chance to write and share their own stories, and we are delighted this year that we were be able to transform those stories into this illustrated book. We hope you enjoy it!

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By Siena Fernandes

By Kulsum Hafeji

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BY CALlum FeRgUson

By Josh Patel

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17

8

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The Story of Little O

By Hadia Hussain Illustrated by Laura Barton

The Story of Little O by Hadia Hussain

5

T

he clock struck twelve. It was midnight. All was quiet because

everyone was asleep, including Little O. Little O was little and was shaped in an O shape; that is how he got his name. Little O was having nightmares!

He was dreaming of a mean ghost stealing all the money and precious things from people. Now that’s not very nice! Quickly Little O woke up in despair.

“What shall I do?” complained Little O.

He hopped out of bed and stared out of the window. “Look at all those stars” exclaimed Little O, “one of them looks different”. In fact Little O was right; one of the stars did look different. And that was because Little O’s dream had come true! He put his dressing gown on and quickly but quietly went downstairs.

There in the garage just sitting there was a silver and blue rocket! “I guess I can ride to the stars in this rocket”. So he did.

“I’m here!” bellowed Little O, his voice echoed into the sky. Carefully he climbed onto the star that looked funny. In the middle of the star was a spooky eerie castle. Little O went inside. “Hello” said a voice as spooky as a witch, “I am the ghost.” “Oh no!” shrieked Little O, “My dream – it’s come true!”

Quickly Little O found where the voice was coming from. He found a ghost with pockets full of gold. He pushed the ghost down on to the floor and took back all the gold. Everyone was happy including Little O. Little O carried on saving the day for the rest of his life.

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The Story of Little O by Hadia Hussain

The Story of Little O by Hadia Hussain

7

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The Story of Little O by Siena Fernandes

The

Adventures ofLittle

By Siena Fernandes

O

Illustrated by Emma Heathcote & Mariequetta Bituin

The Story of Little O by Siena Fernandes

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The Story of Little O by Siena Fernandes

Little O is a letter from the alphabet. He was thrown out of Letter Land by the evil letter W. He must now find his way back to his family in Letter Land.

Here is his story……

I was feeling very frightened now for I was travelling through Witch World. I was walking very fast trying to make no noise at all. Something tapped me on the shoulder and I froze.

I was definitely done for now. I spun round to see who had caught me.

I was very surprised to see that a witch hadn’t caught me but a mouse. “O hullo who may you be ?” said the mouse.

I said “ I am Little O and who are you ?”

The mouse replied, “ I am Tidelywink if you must know .”

Me and Tidelywink soon became great pals even though we had just met. “I know I can trust him.” I said to myself.

Whilst we were walking Tidelywink told me how he had got into Witch World and how he has no family. I told him my story and he said that he would journey with me.

We were coming up to a berry bush when I heard a cackle of laughter. I slowly turned around and saw that there were two witches who I guess had been following us. They tied us up and dragged us to the most ugliest lady I had ever seen. I soon figured out it was a witch when we were locked up in a dungeon.

The Story of Little O by Siena Fernandes

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Me and Tidelywink made a plan to break out. Tidelywink nibbled the rope and we both charged against the door and our plan successfully worked. We crept through the dark corridors and turned a corner to find over one hundred broom sticks.

Tidelywink and myself took a broom stick each and kicked off from the ground. It worked in the end and we flew over Witch World. We heard someone shout “faster�, which is when we then realised that over fifty witches were tailing us. We both went faster, but the witches had more experience at flying than we had and soon they caught up with us. Me and Tidelywink split up and went round and round in circles. The witches soon got dizzy and had to land their brooms.

We then flew straight past Witch World and entered Letter Land.

I was so glad to be back at home. We walked up to a O shaped house and knocked. Mother O opened the door and was overjoyed to see me.

She said that we could adopt Tidelywink the very next morning. When Father O came back from work he was so happy that he took us all out to Letter Families Restaurant. Me and Tidelywink had a Happy Ice Cream and then went home.

Soon me and Tidelywink were more than pals, we were step brothers and were going to have loads of fun.

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The Story of Little O

By

Kulsum Hafeji Illustrated by Josh Pegg

The Story of Little O by Kulsum Hafeji

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The sun felt nice and warm on my skin.

The leaves tickled me and blew the irritating buzz of the fly away.

Suddenly I heard voices, human voices.

I remembered the other day when the orange below me had told me that when the humans come they take you on a long adventure.

That had all sounded very exciting and I couldn’t wait!

At that very moment I saw it. The hand was brown as it wriggled its way to get me and suddenly I didn’t want to go on the adventure after all. I tried to wriggle away but the hand was very tight. It pulled and tugged until Snap! I was snatched off my branch.

I was chucked in with a pile of other oranges.

“Oi get off me!” grumbled the orange I landed on. Then there was a sudden movement.

Everyone was pushing and shoving and falling on top of each other. Oh, it was so noisy and hot and it hurt. We bumped along for a very long time and then unexpectedly everything stopped. I rolled on top of an orange and it started to moan; then the whole pile of oranges started to moan and groan.

At that split second everything went silent because we had heard the voices of the humans.

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The Story of Little O by Kulsum Hafeji

Lots and lots of hands started grabbing and snatching at us like a hungry tarantula. A few minutes later, I was thrown in a big, dark hole.

There was no sunlight and no air. There were many oranges around me, some on top and some at the bottom; we were very frightened. I wanted to go back to my tree with all the birds singing and the sun shining. I felt terrified.

The Story of Little O by Kulsum Hafeji

After a while, the whole world started to move. It felt strange; it was like I was being carried by a giant, but I could not see of course, because it was pitch black. It felt like I was being thrown and everything felt bruised. Suddenly I heard the voices of children; cute, little voices that made me very happy. I was going to come out of this horrid black hole and I couldn’t wait!

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Two little white hands appeared from the top and chose me because I was the cleanest of them all.

When I came out into the lovely light I felt so happy.

Everything was going to be okay.

Two little white hands appeared from the top and chose me because I was the cleanest of them all.

When I came out into the lovely light I felt so happy. Everything was going to be okay. The little fingers tickled my skin and then I saw a silver flash. It was like lightning had struck me and there was total darkness‌.

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The Story of Little O by Kulsum Hafeji

the A

VE tuR S of li t e l

o

BY CALlum FeRgUson

Once, in a huge land (the world) there lived a boy who loved one thing. No it wasn’t putting sticky gel in his hair, it was playing! This boy, who was rather small for an eight year old kid, loved to play around in his tiny garden and be a super hero (he would call himself ‘Little O’.)

illusTRAted by hamza Nagdi

In addition, his real name was called Oscar and his real age was ten, consequently he preferred to be eight as that was when he had the most fun in his life.

The poor kid had long black hair that blew around half the day (12 hours) and a very small body making him so weak sometimes he couldn’t even lift a stone.

His eyes always looked tired when he was at school, however when he transformed into ‘Little O’ he really did look like a very cool, mini super hero!

The Story of Little O by Callum Ferguson

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“Oscar look at this.” his mum (Ann) shouted. Oscar

In a dash Oscar sprinted out of the room and

ran through kitchen and into the living room. “What

into his tree house thinking deeply about what

is it?” Oscar cried waiting eagerly for a reply. Then,

to do. “Um,” he murmured to himself, “there

his mum told him something he probably didn’t want

must be a way”. He knew he had to save the

to know. These were Ann’s exact words.... “Now

world, but how? Oscar, who was on the verge

Oscar, I don’t want you to worry but the world could

of falling asleep quickly opened his eyes and

be taken over by half robot and half alien, it just came

shouted, “I Believe I Can Fly!”

through on the news...”

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The Story of Little O by Callum Ferguson

Shortly afterwards, Oscar was ZOOMING into the air waving his arms rapidly. “Well here I go!!!” Oscar exclaimed, trying to make his voice heard above the wind blowing about. Suddenly Oscar saw a massive ship coming towards him. What should he do? He looked around searching for any random thing. Then he saw a little hole in the huge ship and decided to try and get in through it.

“Yes,” he began, “I’m in.” The next thing ‘Little O’ did was start searching for a certain room (the controls room.) He ran through an area where broken ships were stored and sprinted down a long dark corridor.

There were many rooms in the corridor and some of them had little sparks of flames jumping out. Then, some aliens saw him and chased after him but there was no stopping ‘Little O’. He ran towards robo/alien, leapt over him, then did something magical... he smashed the alien by kicking him (very viciously). He made it to the controls room.

The Story of Little O by Callum Ferguson

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He ran straight into the room where the ship is steered.

Next, ‘Little O’ manoeuvred the giant ship and hit the self destruct button causing a beeping sound which probably meant that in ten seconds the whole ship was going to blow!!!!! Super ‘Little O’ quickly jumped out of the ship with an orange lit sky chasing behind him.

‘Little O’ landed smoothly in his back yard and guess what... no one even knew that he’d just saved the world!!!

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The Story of Little O by Callum Ferguson

The Story of

By Josh Patel Illustrated by Joel Barretto & Joel Gregoire Little O, a seven year old boy, lives deep in the woods with his mum, dad and his younger brother Big G. They live in a secluded cottage in the forest, away from society. His parents are poor and often have difficulty buying basic goods. There have been occasions when they have not had enough food to eat.

Recently, the situation has been become even more difficult as Little O’s father lost his job cutting wood in the forest. They have been living on bread and water but even this is running out.

The day had come when there was no food at all, not even enough for an ant to survive. They had no money either.

The Story of Little O by Josh Patel

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“We need food� Little O said to his mum, feeling weak and tired. His mum was too tired to give a response. Their father was out, as he was most of the time these days. His brother, Big G, heard him and thought it was time to do something about the situation.

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However, Little O was already ahead of him. He had a plan to run away, change his life and make his parents proud, well at least his mum. Little O’s dad was never around and he never seemed hungry like the rest of us.

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Little O was determined to go and do something. “Are you coming?” shouted Little O to Big G. “OK” Big G replied. Off they went before their mum could notice.

As they made their way through the forest, it was becoming darker. Everywhere looked the same. The intertwining branches of the trees cast twisted shadows. “I want to go home” whispered Big G. “Come on, we won’t be too long” reassured Little O. On they went, still searching.

They suddenly saw something in the distance so hurried to find out what it was. A delicious smell hit their noses, so they followed it, which lead them to a small cottage. They knocked on the door but nobody answered. The door was slightly ajar, so they entered the house and what an amazing house it was. There was a distinct smell of oldness. The interior was that of a typical witch’s house. The windows were over-spun with cobwebs, thick, hoary in each corner of the ceiling.

On the corner of his eye, Big G spotted his favourite snacks, doughnuts and Smarties. “Wow!” shouted Big G, “let’s fill our bags to the maximum”.

Little O appeared distracted. He was staring at the wall. “What’s wrong” said Big G, stuffing his face with sweets. Little O was pointing to something. Big G turned to look at what Little O was pointing at. He suddenly noticed pictures of their dad with two other children who he had never seen. His dad was dressed smartly in a suit next to a Mercedes. What was going on?

Suddenly the door handle turned slowly........

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The Story of Little O by Josh Patel

The Story of Little O by Josh Patel

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Illustration by: Laura Warburton

The Spark Children’s Arts Festival 2010 Storywriting competition and book production was supported by Whatever It Takes, Leicester City Council’s reading campaign Printed by Taylor Bloxham, in Leicester Book design by Keith Turner at Mooli, in Loughborough Thanks to: our selection panel - Karen Efford, Paul Gobey, Ellen Lee, Bali Rai, Pam Weston, and 2009 competition winners Noah Hopley-Jones and Louisa Smith; Paul Gillespie and his students at St Paul’s Catholic School; the Whatever it Takes team at the Schools Development Support Agency; Lisa Waite and Kevin Moss at Taylor Bloxham.

The stories are available as a CD, read by Andy Reeves and Alice Nicholas from Speakeasy Theatre Company and recorded at Takeover Radio, Leicester

© The Spark Children’s Arts Festival

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The Story of Little O

tri Os | O i | p pal a | Oli Ok ve | Oa k | ts | Obelis

ch

O

|

pe ra ho u

se | O rigam e ffic | O i| | Ocelot | Om symbol

Ob r |

am

a

|O ran ge

pu a s | |O O w ry l | O ato ar | erv Obs Oeuf | Oboe | Orange |

k

| O

ffe r | O nion | Oc t a ve

gon Octa | Ocarina |

v al | O

cto | O

is little

o

t a h r o W o Wh

?

These five stories are the winning entries of The Spark Children’s Arts Festival 2010 storywriting competition.

Over 150 children, all between the ages of 7 and 12, wrote a story about The Adventures of Little O – but who or what Little O might be was left entirely up to the writer. The winning five stories give a flavour of all the rich and imaginative interpretations that were sent in, as Little O takes on a different form in each story.

supported by Whatever It Takes Leicester City Council’s reading campaign