This challenge is inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Truckers, which tells the story of a race of tiny people (known as nomes) who live hidden among humans. Truckers shared the Peterborough Book Award for ‘Best Chapter Book’ with Treasure Hunters by James Patterson.
The challenge
The nomes live under the floorboards of a large department store where the ‘outdoors’ is long forgotten. Things like light and dark, sun and rain, are just the stuff of old legends.
In the story, a devastating piece of news shatters their existence: the store, their whole world, is to be demolished. The nomes have to come up with a mastermind escape plan to stay alive and they need two things – a place to live, and a way to get there… that’s where you come in!
For this challenge, we want you to create a new habitat for the nomes and a special mode of transport to help them get there. You might want to invent a completely new planet for them to live on, they might come and live in your home, or maybe they move to a new building – a factory or a huge hotel?! Think about how they will travel without being seen by humans, do they need a spaceship? Can they travel on a grasshoppers back? Or maybe they build a boat? It’s all completely up to you!
Once you’ve thought of your ideas, write a story about the nome’s escape plan. You could might want to draw pictures to show us your ideas too – you could even label them!
The competition element has now closed but please feel free to have a go at the challenge anyway.
Top tips
- Follow these top tips to help plan your story
- Watch thisBBC Bitesize video for some story setting ideas
- Listen to Truckers by Terry Pratchett, read by Miss Howling from Kingsnorth school, on YouTube