Winning YAFF story: “Green Beans” by Milo Tanaka

We invite you to read the story by Milo Tanaka, who won 1st place for Kindergarten/Grande Section & 1st Grade/ CP in the 2019 Young Authors Fiction Festival. We will be posting winning stories from the 2019 YAFF regularly for the next few months. Enjoy the stories!

“Green Beans” by Milo Tanaka
1st Place – Kindergarten/Grande Section & 1st Grade/ CP

Once upon a time there was a boy called Milo. Milo lived in a house with his mummy, daddy and two sisters. He liked living at home with his family who he loved very much. He liked almost everything in his life and there was only one thing that he didn’t like and that was green beans.

At home Milo liked to play with Lego and other games. He also liked to play in the park with his friends. His favourite things to do were swimming and riding his bike which made him really hungry but even then he didn’t like green beans.

Milo’s favourite food was his mum’s spaghetti Bolognese which he could eat every day if she made it every day. He also liked hot dogs and mangoes but not with green beans. Milo’s mum would try to make him eat green beans by putting it with other food but he could smell them every time she did this.

Milo thought that if green beans tasted like mangoes or spaghetti Bolognese he would eat them. He wondered why green beans tasted so bad and why anyone would try to make him eat it. Maybe green beans were not meant to be eaten and this was all a big mistake?

What if green beans were like wood and you could build stuff with it? What if you could make a house or a table or a chair using green beans?  Milo thought about how these things would look like if they were made of green beans.

Could you make clothes with green beans thought Milo? He wanted to try and so he asked his mum if he could have some green beans.

“Green beans?…but I thought you hated green beans” said his mum.

“I don’t want to eat them” said Milo, “I want to make a shirt with them’.

“That sounds crazy” cried his mum, “and besides what a waste of green beans!?”

“But I just want to find out if I can make a shirt with green beans” said Milo.

Milo’s mum was a kind lady so she thought about what Milo had said and suggested a deal…”if you try and eat some green beans that I will make for you then you can take the rest and make a shirt with them.”

Milo thought about this and he replied: “yes, that’s a deal Mum!” Later that day Milo’s mum called him into the kitchen where he saw a plate of green beans on the table. He panicked and thought about running away but he remembered that he really wanted some beans to make a shirt. So he moved closer to the plate of green beans and he took one in his hand like a chip. He then imagined that the green bean actually was a chip and placed it slowly in his mouth.

At first it tasted salty and Milo thought that his mum must have put some salt on it. Then he began to chew and thought that it kind of felt like chewing a chip. This wasn’t so bad thought Milo as he swallowed the chewed up green bean. He then took another one and imagined that it was a mango. This time it tasted sweet just like a mango. He did this again and again imagining a different food each time until he had finished all the green beans that were on the plate.

Milo’s mum couldn’t believe what she had seen but the look on her face showed him that she was happy and proud of him. It was the same look that she gave him whenever he did something really good. This made Milo feel really happy too.

Milo said to his mum: “can I have the rest of them please?”

And she replied: “of course a deal is a deal!” and gave him the rest of the green beans.

Milo tried to make a shirt using green beans and glue but it ended up very sticky and messy. What he had made did not look like a shirt, it looked more like mushy seaweed from the sea. Milo decided that it was much more fun to eat green beans that to play with them.