Many times authors will give you clues about what might happen next in a story. These clues are called foreshadowing. You need to watch for them as you're reading because they can help you predict what events will be coming later on in the book.
For example, let's look at the following passage:
'The house was so old it looked like nobody had lived there for years. The boards on the side of the house were all cracked. The yard had waist-high, dried-up grass that looked like hay. Bits of it pushed through rotted boards on the porch. All it would take is one spark and the whole thing would go up in flames.'
What do you predict might happen next? Notice that the author has mentioned dried-up grass, grass on the porch, the cracked boards on the house… and then he mentions flames. Do you think a fire might happen in this story? This is an example of foreshadowing; the clues the author has given you help you predict that the house will catch fire and burn down.
Sometimes you don't know what the author was foreshadowing until something happens and then you realize that there were clues in the beginning of the story that hinted at what's happening. Reading carefully can help you try to figure out if the author is giving you clues.
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Here are some foreshadowing examples from some books you may know.
In Charlotte's Web, the barn rat, Templeton, is given a goose egg that didn't hatch. Charlotte, a wise spider, says, 'A rotten egg is a regular stink bomb.' Templeton tells them, 'I won't break it…I know what I'm doing.' What do you think is going to happen later on in the story?
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Of course! The egg gets broken, and everyone runs from the barn because it smells so bad.
In this book, a character plays in the snow: 'He picked up a handful of snow - and another, and still another. He packed it round and firm and put the snowball in his pocket for tomorrow. Then he went into the warm house.' The clues the author gives you are 'warm house' and 'put the snowball in his pocket for tomorrow.'
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What will happen when he looks for the snowball? It'll have melted into nothing, and all he'll find is a wet pocket.
When Big Anthony comes to help Strega Nona with her chores, she tells him, 'The one thing you must never do is touch the pasta pot.' Of course, Big Anthony doesn't listen and when he does touch the pasta pot later in the story, that's when his problems begin. The author made sure to include this warning at the beginning to foreshadow the later events.
This book has a lot of foreshadowing in it. The main character, Laura Ingalls, describes a grasshopper, saying, 'If you caught a grasshopper and held him, and gently poked a green blade of grass into his jaws, they nibbled it fast. They swiftly nibbled in the whole grass blade, till the tip of it went into them and was gone.'
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What do you think might happen later on in this story? A swarm of grasshoppers lands on the Ingalls farm and eats everything in sight, including the grass and crops.
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Foreshadowing is when the author gives you hints about what will happen later on in the story. These clues help you predict what might happen. As you read, think carefully about the words and hints the author might be giving you.
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