First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for April

If All the World Were Paper



The Little Cock Sparrow



Ye Song of Sixpence



My Lady's Garden

My Shadow

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.


The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.


He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward, you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!


One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 42 The Discovery of Oz the Terrible from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum Doctor Kane Gets Out of the Frozen Sea from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston Other Eggs from Seed-Babies by Margaret Warner Morley A Quick-Running Squash from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton Back to Rome Again from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Tonio's Bad Day (Part 2 of 2) from The Mexican Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins What a Wise Man Learned from an Ass (Part 1 of 2) from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Jack Frost by Celia Thaxter 		Growing Up by A. A. Milne Wee Willie Winkie, Anonymous Where Go the Boats? by Robert Louis Stevenson Lady Moon by Lord Houghton October's Party by George Cooper If a Pig Wore a Wig by Christina Georgina Rossetti
First row Previous row          Next row Last row
The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Hare and the Tortoise

A Hare was making fun of the Tortoise one day for being so slow.

"Do you ever get anywhere?" he asked with a mocking laugh.

"Yes," replied the Tortoise, "and I get there sooner than you think. I'll run you a race and prove it."

The Hare was much amused at the idea of running a race with the Tortoise, but for the fun of the thing he agreed. So the Fox, who had consented to act as judge, marked the distance and started the runners off.

The Hare was soon far out of sight, and to make the Tortoise feel very deeply how ridiculous it was for him to try a race with a Hare, he lay down beside the course to take a nap until the Tortoise should catch up.

The Tortoise meanwhile kept going slowly but steadily, and, after a time, passed the place where the Hare was sleeping. But the Hare slept on very peacefully; and when at last he did wake up, the Tortoise was near the goal. The Hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the Tortoise in time.

The race is not always to the swift.


[Illustration]

The Hare and the Tortoise