Tales of Max, Goo, Pickle and Razor

Meet, quite possibly, the future writers of America.

In only the first grade, Katie Crinella, 6, and Ethan Graber, 6, took first and third places, respectively, in the annual PBS Go Kids writing contest.

Of nearly 150 grammar school students who submitted their essays in Orange County, this pair from St. Joachim Catholic School in Costa Mesa came out on top.

And their prose wasn’t anything like, “See Spot Run” or “Look at Dick and Jane.”

They actually came up with some pretty complicated plots.

Katie wrote about a kid named Max who travels the world trying to get rid of the Super Goo that has decided to stick to him for no apparent reason.

And Ethan wrote about the Evil Green Pickle and his battles with Razor inside an old castle.

Both children on Monday said that they were excited to have taken first and third places.

But what they really want now, they said, is to win first or second place in the national finals, which will be decided this summer.

If they win, they could end up reading their stories on the radio and winning prizes that range from laptops to iPods to iPod holders.

“I don’t know where I got the idea,” shrugged Katie from her little blue plastic seat, when asked about her Super Goo plot. “I just thought of it.”

Ethan couldn’t quite pinpoint where he came up with his idea either, but their teacher, Taylor Gullo, knows.

“We brainstorm. We talk about plots and characters. We talk about stories. We talk about how all stories should have a beginning, a middle and an end,” Gullo said.

Ultimately, though, the writing belongs to her first-graders, Gullo said, although she’ll certainly help them with punctuation. However, she rarely gives her advice on plot. That’s all up to them.

“I think what makes them exceptional is that they do a lot of writing in this class, and they get immediate feed back,” she said.

And good, well-thought-out writing, Gullo said, is important.

What you end up writing in the first grade, and the manner in which you express yourself, ends up following you into junior high school and high school, she said.

It’s important to be creative, she said, when the time comes to take the standardized tests.

Principal Sister Kathleen Marie Pughe is proud of the class and Gullo.

“It’s vitally important that they learn how to write, and, well, just look at the walls,” she said. “It’s incredible the amount of writing that goes on in here.”

She was pointing to the walls of Gullo’s classroom, which were adorned with all sorts of pencil-written essays.

But it was Katie and Ethan’s pieces of writing that wowed the PBS judges.

“Once upon a time there was a blob called Super Goo. Super Goo found himself stuck to a little boy. He was extremely scared at first, and then he began to like his new friend Max. Max was surprised Super Goo did not come off. He traveled all over the world to get help removing it. In Africa, Max tried to rub the Super Goo on an elephant. The Goo did not come off. In Japan, Max tried to stick rice on the super goo. The Goo did not come off. In Texas, Max tried to cover the Goo in Bar-B-Que sauce. The Goo did not come off. Max even went to Ireland to try the magic of a Leprechaun. The Goo did not come off.”

Spoiler Alert:

“Max went home and took a walk in the park to cheer himself up. Max met a Girl Scout troop selling cookies. The girls said they needed to work together to get the Goo off. The Girl Scout troop pulled and tugged and pulled some more, until finally the goo broke off into five pieces.

“Max was so happy that he gave the girls the pieces to wear as friendship badges. Max went home happily munching a box of cookies without Super Goo on his hand. The end.”