Writing a Letter to Dav Pilkey

If you don't know who Captain Underpants is, then you are really missing out on life.  He is the famous superhero of the series by the same name, written by Dav Pilkey.  Pilkey's story is interesting: as a child in school, he was told that he would never make a living drawing and writing cartoons all day.  Boy were they wrong! 

The books are borderline offensive in the sense of: if you don't appreciate potty humor, these books are not for you or for your kids.  What I like about these books is 1) They have fueled an even greater interest in reading for Sathya, in addition to helping him make the transition to chapter books, 2) They are funny, even for adults, and 3) They do have coded messages in there that are quite honorable, if you can look through all the poop and fart jokes.

For our writing lesson, Sathya wrote a letter to Mr. Pilkey.  In one of the books, Sathya was forced to change his name to "Snotty Banana Chunks" by Professor Poopypants, who decided to change everyone's name since people ridiculed his name so much (gosh, I wonder why).  An address was given at the end of the book for those readers who'd suffered emotional distress from having had their name changed:

Sathya then wrote his very first "official" letter, which we mailed off on Wednesday.  I hope that there is no statute on letters and that he receives a response:

(If you can't read it, it says: "Dear Mr. Pilkey, I love Captain Underpants.  Your friend, Sathya Martin".)

Sathya's least favorite thing is writing (gasp! That's heartache for me, who is a writer), but by incorporating fun ways to do our lessons (without calling them "lessons"), he is at least getting his practice in.  Go, Sathya!