An elementary school classroom brings a Zelda-like adventure book to life.
by Kevin Goodwin
All photos were taken and provided by the author.
I always make it a point to read my 2nd grade class My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett. This is a classic adventure book series from about 80 years ago about a boy going on a journey to save a dragon from terrible animals and their travels back to the boy’s home. You could connect these books to lots of things before and after they were written. They are wonderful little books that I would recommend to anyone.
You might be asking, “What does this have to do with The Legend of Zelda?” Every time I have read the books to a class, someone always makes a connection to Zelda, and my ears always perk up at the mention of that. The books really do have a sense of the games in them, or maybe it's more like the games have a connection to the books. Either way, the main character makes his way through the story with a series of seemingly random items (chewing gum, toothpaste, ribbons, lollipops, etc.), and he encounters lots and lots of problems that need to be overcome with each of these items. This always reminds me of Link needing to use certain dungeon items to overcome obstacles and enemies. The character in the book also has a knack for keeping an insane amount of things in a single knapsack, much like how Link can seemingly store endless amounts of items in his bottomless pockets.
My kids recently put a lot of work into turning the book into a stop-motion movie. They did everything from making scripts, building the characters, filming the animation, recording their voices, and helping with editing. Please feel free to watch it, and we hope you enjoy it.
It is always good to take a story like this or a story like Zelda and let it help you use your imagination to create something new. Can you think of any other literary works that have connections to The Legend of Zelda?
