and other Acremont Animal Adventures
Our gift to you! From the children of King’s Ely Acremont past and present to you as you begin your time here, we have written a series of short stories for you to read as you join our school. From school council to assembly, from classroom to the playground, our learning habits help us to be collaborative, courageous, and imaginative tryers, tinkerers and thinkers! We have created Chester, Cara, Buzzbee, and Otis to remind us of our learning habits and how they support us during our learning journey through King’s Ely Acremont. We have worked with the adults around us to create these stories and we have mastered watercolour techniques to help create some of the beautiful illustrations that light up our story writing. We hope you enjoy reading our stories and we warmly welcome you into our school.
The four wonderful tales of Chester, Buzzbee, Cara and Otis, perfectly encapsulate the creative approach and care at the heart of King’s Ely. They remind us that no one can succeed alone, while demonstrating that success - and how to achieve it - is different for everyone. Topping & Company Booksellers
Dedication We dedicate this book to all those in our community whose passion for learning has driven this project and to those who live it with such energy and conviction.
Chester The Cheetah in...
One day, Chester the Cheetah was sprinting through the grassland trying to catch a small hare. Worried that it might be caught, the hare scuttled quickly into its burrow.
Unfortunately, Chester wasn’t looking where he was going and tripped over a tree root and fell headfirst into the entrance to the burrow. He was stuck!
Chester tried to wiggle his head from side to side to free himself, but it didn’t work. It just made things worse as his face was now covered in dirt.“I know, I will try again to pull my head out by pushing my paws against the ground,” Chester thought. However, his head was so tightly stuck in the entrance hole that even pushing against the ground didn’t help. Chester didn’t want to give up, and couldn’t spend the rest of the day trapped, so he shouted to Alex and Daisy who happened to be strolling along nearby.
Alex and Daisy thought long and hard and tried to come up with a solution. They asked Chester if he had tried to pull his head out, but Chester explained that it hadn’t worked.
Alex thought that if Chester used his claws to scrape at the entrance hole, it would help move the soil away. “I can do this!” Chester thought to himself.
With all his might, Chester started scraping at the ground with his sharp claws. Very slowly, the hole got bigger and bigger. It worked!
Alex and Daisy helped to pull Chester out of the burrow until he was free. “Hooray!” shouted Alex and Daisy. “Thank you,” said Chester. “You’re welcome,” replied Daisy.
Chester had learnt two lessons that day. “In future I will always look where I am going, and I’ve learnt to never give up when things get tricky!”
Buzzbee The Bee in...
One day there lived a bee called Buzzbee. Buzzbee was enjoying playing and flying around a beautiful park.
As he was looking at all of the wonderful colours below, Buzzbee didn’t notice the enormous tree in front of him. He hit one of the branches and crashed to the floor. “Aagghh, help me! Anybody? Help me!” wailed Buzzbee as he looked at his fragile wings and noticed one of them was broken.
Buzzbee wondered how he could fix his broken wing. He looked around and saw two children sitting next to a nearby statue. Their names were Eleanor and Ted.
Buzzbee asked if Eleanor could help him. Eleanor listened carefully to his story and was only too pleased to help.
She called Ted over to help and together they fixed his wing with brown paper, cellophane and masking tape. Once finished, Buzzbee proudly showed off a brand new fairy wing. As he fluttered his wings up and down, he waved goodbye to Eleanor and Ted. “Thank you, thank you. If it wasn’t for you both working together and helping me, I wouldn’t be able to fly again! I could never have done it on my own.”
Cara The Chameleon in...
Once there was a colourful chameleon called Cara who lived in the Amazon Forest. When she turned brown and green, nobody could see her. One day Cara went to sleep on a branch and when she woke up, she discovered that she was still brown, and she couldn’t change her colour! She tried moving away from the branch onto a pink flower but still she was brown.
Cara was very worried and sad. “What if I am never able to be rainbow coloured again?” she thought. If Cara couldn’t change colour, then she would be sure to be eaten by predators in the forest. It would mean that Cara could only sit on things that were brown in the forest if she wanted to keep camouflaged. She tried imagining being rainbow coloured again but just thinking about it didn’t help. Despite being slightly scared of heights, she tried jumping up and down in the hope that she would find her colours again but when she looked at her reflection in a nearby river, she noticed she hadn’t changed colour.
As Cara was sitting beside the river, she noticed Finn and Emily walking towards her. They asked her what was wrong. She explained that she had lost the ability to change colour and all the things she had tried in order to get it back hadn’t worked.
“Try to think creatively Cara”, Finn and Emily said. “Why don’t you try to find another chameleon in the forest and try imagining changing colour at the same time. Or try hopping from coloured flower to coloured flower”.
Cara liked these ideas but was worried that she might get eaten if she moved from where she was sitting. Just then, Emily noticed a rainbow reflection on the water. “Why don’t you jump onto the reflection and see if that gives you your colour back?” she suggested. Cara thought that was a very creative idea. Gathering all her strength and being very brave, Cara jumped into the water. Suddenly her whole body turned rainbow coloured again! Delighted, Cara shouted “HOORAY! Thank you, thank you” to Finn and Emily. “Thank you for being curious and coming up with such creative ideas!”
Otis The Owl in...
Long ago and far away there lived an owl called Otis. One day, Otis was flying around in a wood with his parents.
Suddenly, he came across a small bird stuck in a gargantuan spider’s web. The little bird was chirping sadly. “Oh no,” said Otis, “Are you stuck?” The little bird explained that she had been stuck all day. She tried to flutter her wings up and down, each time a little quicker, in the hope it would help but her wings seemed to get more cobwebs on them and made it worse.
She had then thought that she could use her claws to get out but that didn’t work as her feet got stuck in one of the holes and got more cobwebs tangled around them.
Otis could see that the little bird was beginning to panic and get very scared. “Try to think about what you have tried already and how you could change your actions to help yourself ” he said.
The little bird thought and thought. She had tried flapping her wings, wriggling about and even using her claws and feet, but nothing worked. But then she had an idea; what if she used her beak to pick the cobwebs off.
The little bird carefully and slowly removed each bit of cobweb and felt herself getting less and less tangled. Before she knew it, she was free. “Thank you, Otis! I won’t ever forget you! I’ve learnt to think about how I can help myself, ask questions, reflect on what I have done in the past and, above all, I have learnt to solve problems!”
Lou Carter grew up in Kent and spent most of her childhood playing music. Her work as a school teacher sparked her love of children’s picture books and funny fiction. She lives and works as a fitness instructor in Cambridge. Lou’s picture book, There Is No Dragon in This Story (Bloomsbury), illustrated by Deborah Allwright, is published in more than 20 international territories, and has been followed by There Is No Big Bad Wolf in This Story. A lover of white chocolate mice, she is also the creator of Oscar the Hungry Unicorn (Hachette), illustrated by Nikki Dyson, whose latest adventure is Oscar the Hungry Unicorn Meets the New Babycorn. Brand new from Lou this year is The Great Hamster Getaway (Bloomsbury), illustrated by Magda Brol. Lou worked closely with a group of Acremont children to help them develop the stories in this book. She said: “It was an absolute privilege to spend time at Acremont with such an enthusiastic team of young writers.”
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Paula Banks is a self-taught artist who was born in Cambridge, the place she still calls home today. Paula lives with her husband, two children and menagerie of horses, cats, dogs, goats and alpacas. Don’t tell the other animals, but the goats are her favourite! A lover of the colour green, Paula gained top grades in art and design examinations but being such a massive animal lover, she ended up working as a Veterinary Nurse for many years. As well as treating and caring for pets and wildlife in need, the job also helped her to draw and understand the anatomy of all living creatures. Paula says the shapes and forms which lie underneath the surface are what give animals their form, which is why these are the main subject of her work. She said: “Animals have, and always will be an integral part of my life and work. My inspiration for the characters in this book came from the children who wrote such wonderful stories from an imagination us adults can only dream of! Alongside my unique relationship with my own animals, I can empathise with animals to a level where I almost see life through their eyes.” Paula loves all things creative and after working with many mediums, she finds charcoal to be the one that really seems to work with her and her style. She is also a fan of potatoes. Paula said: “Potatoes are absolute winners in terms of different uses. It’s like the other veg didn’t try!”
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King’s Ely Acremont 28-30 Egremont Street Ely, Cambridgeshire CB6 1AE
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