Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for January

I Had a Little Nut Tree



The Four Presents



Little Man and Maid



The Jolly Tester

The Land of Story-Books

At evening when the lamp is lit,

Around the fire my parents sit;

They sit at home and talk and sing,

And do not play at anything.


Now, with my little gun, I crawl

All in the dark along the wall,

And follow round the forest track

Away behind the sofa back.


There, in the night, where none can spy,

All in my hunter's camp I lie,

And play at books that I have read

Till it is time to go to bed.


These are the hills, these are the woods,

These are my starry solitudes;

And there the river by whose brink

The roaring lions come to drink.


I see the others far away

As if in firelit camp they lay,

And I, like to an Indian scout,

Around their party prowled about.


So when my nurse comes in for me,

Home I return across the sea,

And go to bed with backward looks

At my dear land of Story-Books.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 13 The Inn of the Red Craw-Fish from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi Sir Philip Sidney from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin An Old Friend in a New Home from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum Marcus Aurelius from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge If You Don't Like Conversation, Skip This Chapter (Part 1 of 3) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher Gideon and His Brave Three Hundred (Part 1 of 2) from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Homes in Iceland (Part 2 of 3) from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall Holly Trees and Holly Bushes (Part 2 of 2) from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch The Bundle of Sticks from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Find a Great Store of Things from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Perseus and Andromeda from A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price Reddy Fox Is Very Miserable from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess The Castaway Story from The Sandman: His Ship Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
Pippa's Song by Robert Browning
Windy Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson 		  Margery Brown by Kate Greenaway Jim Jay by Walter de la Mare Violets by John Moultrie Little Blue Pigeon by Eugene Field
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Lion and the Mouse

A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion's nose. Roused from his nap, the Lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her.

"Spare me!" begged the poor Mouse. "Please let me go and some day I will surely repay you."

The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. But he was generous and finally let the Mouse go.

Some days later, while stalking his prey in the forest, the Lion was caught in the toils of a hunter's net. Unable to free himself, he filled the forest with his angry roaring. The Mouse knew the voice and quickly found the Lion struggling in the net. Running to one of the great ropes that bound him, she gnawed it until it parted, and soon the Lion was free.


[Illustration]

"You laughed when I said I would repay you," said the Mouse. "Now you see that even a Mouse can help a Lion."

A kindness is never wasted.