Portals to magical places are a staple of children’s fantasy stories: Narnia, Wonderland, Neverland, Anthony Browne’s Tunnel, and so on.
The point is to end up somewhere very different, but the means is important, as it contributes to the mood. The Narnia wardrobe contrasts the mundane with the magical; Alice’s potion is worrying, as children have always been told to avoid drinking mysterious fluids; and any tunnel is scary, particularly one you have to crawl through!
In Hunt for the Golden Scarab, MG Leonard has time portals – ‘doors’ in the book – that are opened with the right music, played by people with an innate gift.
Sim doesn’t think he has inherited this ability, but discovers the opposite is true, and the transition scene captures the process and disorientation beautifully.
Writing your own portal stories
This resource pack will help you guide KS2 children through the process of analysing this gripping magical scene as both readers and writers, selecting the techniques they might adopt to compose a portal scene of their own, whether to a different time or fantastical place.
This process will enhance any broader study of Hunt for the Golden Scarab (which itself could sit alongside study of Ancient Egypt and the discoveries of archaeologists), or simply increase enjoyment of it as a class story.
Alternatively, the extract may be used on its own, as a means for teaching the authorial techniques, both figurative and grammatical, including the deliberate use of incomplete sentences.
Some children may find this scene so intriguing that they’ll want to read the whole novel themselves, to discover how Sim got to this point – and who the mysterious new person is.
Resources
This download contains:
- Extract from Hunt for the Golden Scarab by MG Leonard
- How writers can describe a transition through a portal’ poster
- ‘Exploring writers’ techniques’ worksheet
- ‘Exploring writers’ techniques’ working wall display
- Teacher notes
- Planning sheet
Tips for writing great portal stories
Purpose
Know why you are using a portal. Establish how it works and what it does. This is the door lore that creates the magic in the story. Whether it’s a door in time or to a secret garden, you need to know why it’s there and what purpose it will serve in your story.
Struggle
Adding mystery or a struggle to a character’s ability to open the portal will make it more of a significant event. Delaying the opening of the door will increase your reader’s curiosity about what or who is on the other side. If it’s too easy, it’s boring. Why might your character fail to open the portal?
New territory
What is on the other side of your portal? Your protagonist should notice all physical differences and any strangeness. What do they think or feel about the space on the other side of the door? Consider weather, temperature, landscape, time, flora and fauna and the people or creatures that live in this new place.
A challenge
Whatever is waiting for our hero on the other side of the portal must challenge them, and the experience should change them. In the featured extract, Sim wishes his mum would save him, but after opening the Time Door, he sets out to save her.
Language
What do you want your reader to know about this new place? Think about how you describe going through the door or portal. Try changing the narrative perspective. Use simile or metaphor to evoke newness
What is Hunt for the Golden Scarab about?
Author MG Leonard explains…
I grew up loving Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, and Dr Who. And I also enjoyed history at school. All of this has contributed to me eventually imagining that there are special doors that can open into the time in which they were made. I call them Time Doors.
Of course, not anyone can open a Time Door. Only a Time Key can spot one and will be able to open it. In my Time Keys series, only young people with a musical gift are capable of being Time Keys.
It’s a fact that children usually have superior hearing to adults. This is important, because it is music that opens a Time Door. The Time Key can tune into the frequency of a Time Door and play the music required to open it.
In Hunt for the Golden Scarab, my heroes open a Time Door back to Ancient Egypt, because they are searching for the lost heart scarab of Nefertiti.
The story takes the reader from the present to 1922, when Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb, and then all the way back to 1331 BCE.
In each book of the Time Keys series, our musical heroes will open a portal into the past and have an adventure. Every story will have at least one powerful portal.
Thank you to Lindsay Pickton for creating the resource pack. Browse more WAGOLL packs from real authors.
