HC-L16_Lunch Money

# Lesson 16
## Vocabulary in Context

開始囉：

feature（以……為特色；著重於）
Storytellers often feature, or focus on, tales from their own cultural tradition.
說故事的人常常會以自己文化傳統中的故事為重點，或特別描述（feature）這些故事。

下一個：

record（紀錄）
One of these tiny volumes could claim the record as the world's smallest book.
這些小小的書本其中一本，可能可以號稱是世界上最小書的紀錄（紀錄）。

下一個：

assuming（假設；只要）
Mimes can tell stories without words, assuming viewers follow their motions.
默劇演員不用說話也能講故事，只要（assuming）觀眾看得懂他們的動作。

下一個：

mental（心理的；腦海中的）
Exact words help readers create mental pictures of a story's characters and setting.
精確的用字可以幫助讀者在腦海中（mental）想像故事人物和場景的畫面。

下一個：

launch（出版；發行）
After the launch, or initial printing, of his book, this author signs a copy of it at a store.
在他的書出版（launch），也就是第一次印刷之後，這位作者在書店替一本書簽名。

下一個：

thumbed（快速翻閱）
At the library, this student thumbed through books to find a story to read later.
在圖書館裡，這位學生快速翻閱（thumbed）書本，想找一本之後要讀的故事。

下一個：

developed（設計；發展）
An artist developed, or planned, this character from pencil sketch to final color drawing.
藝術家從鉛筆草圖到最後的彩色圖畫，逐步設計（developed）這個角色。

下一個：

incredibly（非常地；令人難以置信地）
Roman heroes like Hercules are often incredibly, or unbelievably, strong.
像Hercules這樣的羅馬英雄通常非常、非常強壯，強到令人難以置信（incredibly）。

下一個：

episodes（章節；片段）
A story told in several episodes, or parts, is sometimes called a series.
由好幾個章節（episodes）或部分組成的故事，有時候會被稱為系列故事。

下一個：

villains（壞人；反派角色）
In old movies most villains had evil grins, wore black clothes, and battled the heroes.
在老電影中，大多數壞人（villains）都露出邪惡的笑容、穿黑色衣服，並且和英雄對抗。

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LUNCH MONEY by Andrew Clements selection illustrated by Adam Gustavson

## ESSENTIAL QUESTION
In what ways can illustrations enhance a reader's experience?

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Standing in the cafeteria line, Greg opened his red plastic pencil case. He counted once, and then he counted again, just to be sure. Then he grinned. There were thirteen left.

*Sweet! That means I sold seventeen units.*

That’s what Greg called the comic books he’d been selling—units. And selling seventeen units before lunch was a new sales record.

Greg’s comic books weren’t the kind for sale at stores. Regular comic books were sort of tall. Also a little floppy. Not Greg’s.

Greg’s comic books were about the size of a credit card, and they could stand up on one end all by themselves. They were only sixteen pages long, and he could fit about fifty of them into his pencil case. These comic books were short and sturdy. And that’s why they were called Chunky Comics.

Greg loved that name. He had chosen it himself. He got to pick the name because he was the author of all the Chunky Comics stories. He had drawn all the pictures too. And he was also the designer, the printer, and the binder. Plus he was the marketing manager, the advertising director, and the entire sales force. Chunky Comics was a one-kid operation, and that one kid was Greg Kenton.

Greg snapped the pencil case shut and grabbed a tray. He took a grilled cheese sandwich, a cup of carrot sticks, and then looked over the fruit cocktail bowls until he found one with three chunks of cherry. He got a chocolate milk from the cooler, and as he walked toward his seat, Greg did some mental math.

Monday, the first day Chunky Comics had gone on sale, he had sold twelve units; Tuesday, fifteen units; Wednesday, eighteen units; and today, Thursday, he had already sold seventeen units—before lunch. So that was . . . sixty-two units since Monday morning, and each little book sold for $.25. So the up-to-the-minute sales total for September 12 was . . . $15.50.

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Greg knew why sales were increasing: word of mouth. Kids had been telling other kids about his comic book. The cover illustration was powerful, the inside pictures were strong, and the story was loaded with action. The title was *Creon: Return of the Hunter*, and it was volume 1, number 1, the very first of the Chunky Comics. So that made it a collector’s item.

Greg sat down at his regular lunch table, next to Ted Kendall. Ted nodded and said, “Hi,” but Greg didn’t hear him. Greg picked up his sandwich and took a big bite. He chewed the warm bread and the soft cheese, but he didn’t taste a thing. Greg was still thinking about sales.

*Fifteen fifty in three and a half days—not so hot.*

Greg had set a sales goal for the first week: twenty-five dollars—which meant that he had to sell one hundred units. It looked like he was going to fall short.

請看下側文字：

**Voice** Authors can use word choice and point of view to show what a character is like. Explain how the author uses these techniques to make Greg’s personality and voice come through.

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The idea of making and selling comic books had hit Greg like a KRAK!! over the head from Superman himself. It made perfect sense. Candy and gum were against school rules, and tiny toys were boring—and also against the rules. But how could he go wrong selling little books? School was all about books and reading. True, reading a comic book wasn't exactly the same as reading a regular book, but still, there was a rack of comics right in the kids' section at the public library downtown, and some new graphic novels, too.

Comic books had been part of Greg's life forever, mostly because of his dad's collection. His dad's collection filled three shelves in the family room—and it was worth over ten thousand dollars. Once Greg had shown he knew how to take care of the comic books, he had been allowed to read and look at them all he wanted. Greg had even bought a few collectible comics of his own, mostly newer ones that weren't very expensive.

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It was his love of comic books that had first gotten Greg interested in drawing. Comics had led Greg to books like *How to Draw Comic Book Villains*, *You Can Draw Superheroes*, *Make Your Own Comic-Book Art*, and *Draw the Monsters We Love to Hate*. Back in third grade Greg had used his own money to buy india ink, dip pens, brushes, and paper at the art supply store. And drawing new comic-book characters was one of his favorite things to do—when he wasn't earning money.

That whole summer before sixth grade Greg had worked toward the launch of Chunky Comics. From the start he had felt pretty sure he could come up with a story idea, and he knew he would be able to do the drawings.

But first he'd had to deal with a lot of hows: How does a whole comic book get put together? How big should each be? How was he going to print them? How much would it cost him to make each one? And finally, how much money should he charge for his finished comic books—assuming he could actually make some?

But one by one, Greg had found the answers. An encyclopedia article about printing books had helped a lot. It showed how pages of a book start as one large sheet of paper that gets folded in half several times. Each time the sheet is folded, the number of pages is doubled. So Greg took a piece of regular letter-size paper, and folded it in half three times the way it showed in the encyclopedia. That one piece of paper turned into a chunky little sixteen-page book—Chunky Comics. It was so simple.

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But not really. Greg figured out that making little comic books was a ten-step process.

1. Write a story that can be told on twelve to fourteen mini-comic book pages.

2. Sketch, draw, ink, and then letter all sixteen minipages—which include the front and back covers.

3. Paste eight of the minipage drawings into their correct positions on a piece of paper to make "master copy one"—a sheet that can be copied again and again.

4. Paste up the other eight minipages to make "master copy two."

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5. Using a copier, print the images from "master copy one" onto one side of a "press sheet"—a piece of regular letter-size paper.

6. Print "master copy two" onto the flip side of the press sheet—making eight page images on the front, and eight on the back.

7. Carefully fold the press sheet with the sixteen copied minipages on it.

8. Put in two staples along the crease at the very center of the little book—between pages 8 and 9.

9. Trim the three unstapled edges—and that makes one finished mini-comic book.

10. Repeat.

And each of the ten steps had to be done perfectly, or no one would ever want to spend money on his little comics.

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After all the *hows* had been settled, then came the writing. But Greg hadn’t written just one story. He had *developed* a master publishing plan. Volume 1 was going to be about Creon, an *incredibly* intelligent Stone Age hero who helped his tribe deal with ancient dangers, like prehistoric beasts and Cro-Magnon marauders. Greg figured there could be seven or eight issues about Creon.

Chunky Comics volume 2 would *feature* the future, where a superhero named Eeon tried to protect a small colony of humans living in a world of melting ice caps and mutant life-forms that were part human, part toxic sludge, and part recycled trucks and airplanes. Again, there would be seven or eight issues featuring Eeon.

請看下側文字：

**Visual Elements** What do you notice about this story's illustrations? What do they help you understand about the story and the main character?

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Then Chunky Comics volume 3 would feature Leon, a fairly normal modern-age technodude who suddenly finds himself energized when his digital atomic watch overheats and burns its circuits into the nerves on his wrist. Leon learns that the watch can be set for the future or the past. The six or seven time-travel adventures of volume 3 would follow Leon to the past, where he would team up with Creon, and then to the future, where he would offer his services to the amazing Eon. And eventually, all three characters would have some final episodes together: Creon, Leon, and Eon—past, present, and future.

Once the master plan was set, writing the first Creon story, Return of the Hunter, had been pretty easy for Greg. But the drawing was more difficult than he'd thought it would be. It had taken a long time to get each small page looking just the way he wanted. It wasn't like doodling or sketching. These pictures had to be good—good enough to sell.

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When both covers and the fourteen inside pages had been drawn and inked and pasted in place to make the two master copies, Greg tackled his first printing.

The copier he used was his dad's, and it was actually part of the printer that was hooked up to the computer in the family room. It was an ink-jet printer, plus a scanner, plus a copier—one of those "all-in-one" machines. It made copies in either black and white or color.

Greg had stuffed about forty ruined sheets of paper into the recycling bin before he had figured out how to get all sixteen page images copied correctly onto the front and back of one sheet of paper.

But finally, he had folded his first perfectly printed sheet, stapled it twice, and trimmed the top, front, and bottom edges. And then, one hot night in the middle of July, Greg stood there in his family room and thumbed through the very first volume of Chunky Comics. It had been a proud moment.

請看下側文字：

**Author's Purpose** Why do you think the author uses such detail to explain how the comic books are made? What do these details reveal about the main character?

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