For this post I am going all the way back to February of this year. It’s funny how much my daughter’s skills have changed in just a few months. I forget how well she writes–back in February she was only using a few words in her drawings, and now she is writing whole pages. This was the first of the four Kikwi books she made. I had bought her one of those mini notebooks at Dollarama or somewhere, and she promptly filled it up with these very intricate comic-style stories about Kikwis (from The Legend of Zelda video game), along with some other mash-up references from anything she was into at the moment. The other main character she uses is actually Link (also from Legend of Zelda), but when she and my husband were playing the game he renamed Link “Lamesauce”, as Dads are apt to do, and the name stuck. So Lamesauce features heavily in her Kikwi stories.

There are 60 pages like the first page above, some with more panels and some with less, but all more or less following a storyline. I attempted to get Poppy to tell me what was happening in each panel, but we only got to page 19 and we were both pretty tired. So in Poppy’s own words, with only some minor clarification on my part, the story goes as follows:

Page 1 (pictured above) Panel 1 and 2 – Lamesauce leaves his room. Panel 3 – Two Kikwis and a Pony (a My Little Pony) sneak in. Panel 4 – An elder Kikwi and a little Kikwi bring Lamsauce a present. Panel 5 – A bunch of little Kikwis and an elder Kikwi bring Lamesauce presents. Panel 6 – Lamesauce catches some butterflies (just like in the video game).

And just for reference, this is a Kikwi:

 Page 2 Panel 1 – A Kikwi took the book from Lamesauce’s desk. Panel 2 – Four Kikwis get a giant book. Panel 3 – Seven Kikwi’s go down a vine. Panel 4 – One Kikwi lets go of the vine and takes a sailcloth landing (how Link lands in the game) into the water. Panel 5 – They all fall in the water all at the same time. Panel 6 – They swim underwater.

Page 3 Panel 1 – Lamesauce dropped his sword! Panel 2 – Then he threw off his green hat and green-like jacket (she was very specific about the “green-like jacket”). Panel 3 – The Lumpy Pumpkin (a place in the game). Panel 4 – A bunch of pumpkins and the pumpkin field of The Lumpy Pumpkin. Panel 5 – All the main Ponies find Lamesauce’s green hat and green-like jacket. Panel 6 – Both Unicorn Ponies do a spell to be able to hold the purple blanket.

Page 4 Panel 1 – The elder Kikwi and a little Kikwi find a globe that shows a burning eye (from Lord of the Rings)! Panel 2 – The elder Kikwi is trying to think what book to read next (because he is on the last page). Panel 3 – One of the little Kikwis  brings out the book saying “Yes yes” but the elder Kikwi says “No!”. Panel 4 – He reads the first page of “The King Who Tickled the Moon” (one of Poppy’s home reading books from school). Panel 5 – All the Kikwis say “We” because they want to read the book but the elder says no. Panel 6 – He’s like “Umm these Kikwis are too crazy!”. Panel 7 – Then they all say “Wii” because they want to play Boom Blox (a Wii game). Panel 8 – The elder Kikwi says “Yes.” and he puts the book away.

Page 5 Panel 1 – Lamesauce picks up a Kikwi, ready to read a story. Panel 2 – The Kikwi starts reading a story by saying “We.” Panel 3 – The Kikwi reads more by saying “We go.” Panel 4 – The Kikwi reading says “It’s me.” because the Kikwi who is reading is the Kikwi waving the sailcloth around and around. Panel 5 – Then he is showing a picture of Kikwis on a bus. Panel 6 – A Kikwi raising a phone and a Kikwi raising a book. Panel 7 – Kikwis pouring seeds. Panel 8 – Kikwis pouring more seeds.

Page 6 Panel 1 – Then the seeds pouring slows down. Panel 2 – The book is showing you how to love other Kikwis. Panel 3 – Then it’s showing a lucky heart envelope. Panel 4 – It talks more about the heart envelopes. Panel 5 – Then it’s telling Tutu (one of the Kikwis) to go to the ponies. Panel 6 – A Kikwi shouts “It’s The End!” (of the Kikwi Yearbook). Panel 8 – A Kikwi catches a heart ladybug.

Page 7 Panel 1 – A Kikwi watches her crystal ball, holding her bug net. Panel 2 – A bunch of Kikwis go dancing while one holds a book. Panel 3 – Then a Kikwi sees the vine jumping. Panel 4 – A bunch of Kikwis go “We’ll hang onto the vine with you.” Panel 5 – They all go down the vine and two let go and take a sailcloth landing into the water. Panel 6 – They all fall into the water at once. Panel 7 – The elder Kikwi went searching for all his little Kikwis. Page 8 – All the Kikwis meet Lamesauce under water.

Page 8 Panel 1 – A puff of pink turns into Spike (from My Little Pony). Panel 2 – Spike tells the Kikwis about the best My Little Ponies. Panel 3 and 4 – A heart turns into Sweetie Belle. Panel 5 and 6 – A puff of pink turns into Princess Luna.

Page 9 Panel 1 – A Kikwi thinks about Lamesauce. Panel 2 – Then she thinks of dowsing for Lamesauce. Panel 3 – She started dowsing and it said Lamesauce was underground digging for Rupies. Panel 4 – Then Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack came up but that was wrong! Panel 5 – Then a minion (from Despicable Me) disguised as Lamesauce came up. Panel 6 – The Kikwi thought it was the real Lamesauce. She didn’t notice the minion pin. Panel 7 – It pulled off it’s disguise and looked like a minion. Panel 8 – Then she was like “Urgh!” and she said “No more wrong things!”

So that seemed like a good spot to end off. I just love how she can portray emotions and express actions with her simple little Kikwi drawings. I don’t think I could do it. Especially just sitting down and drawing out of my head.