Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for November

A Diamond or a Coal?

A diamond or a coal?
A diamond, if you please:
Who cares about a clumsy coal
Beneath the summer trees?

A diamond or a coal?
A coal, sir, if you please:
One comes to care about the coal
What time the waters freeze.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Week 18	Pinocchio Meets the Fox and the Cat Again from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi	George Washington and His Hatchet from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin	Drummers and Carpenters from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess	The Clock Strikes and Maid-alone Stays from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum	The Dark Ages from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge	Elizabeth Ann Fails in an Examination (Part 3 of 3) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher	The Idol Temple at Dan and Its Priest from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
	Wineland the Good (Part 2 of 2) from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall	Mr. and Mrs. Crab from Seaside and Wayside, Book One by Julia McNair Wright	The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter	I Explore My Island from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin	Little White Rabbit from Nursery Tales from Many Lands by Eleanor L. and Ada M. Skinner	A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess	The Second Night from The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
	A Bird's Experience, Anonymous	Ariel's Song from The Tempest by William Shakespeare		The Fairies Have Never a Penny to Spend by Rose Fyleman	Off the Ground by Walter de la Mare	Over Hill, Over Dale by William Shakespeare	There Was a Cherry-Tree by James Whitcomb Riley

The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter

The Fox and the Crow

One bright morning as the Fox was following his sharp nose through the wood in search of a bite to eat, he saw a Crow on the limb of a tree overhead. This was by no means the first Crow the Fox had ever seen. What caught his attention this time and made him stop for a second look, was that the lucky Crow held a bit of cheese in her beak.

"No need to search any farther," thought sly Master Fox. "Here is a dainty bite for my breakfast."

Up he trotted to the foot of the tree in which the Crow was sitting, and looking up admiringly, he cried, "Good-morning, beautiful creature!"

The Crow, her head cocked on one side, watched the Fox suspiciously. But she kept her beak tightly closed on the cheese and did not return his greeting.

"What a charming creature she is!" said the Fox. "How her feathers shine! What a beautiful form and what splendid wings! Such a wonderful Bird should have a very lovely voice, since everything else about her is so perfect. Could she sing just one song, I know I should hail her Queen of Birds."

Listening to these flattering words, the Crow forgot all her suspicion, and also her breakfast. She wanted very much to be called Queen of Birds.

So she opened her beak wide to utter her loudest caw, and down fell the cheese straight into the Fox's open mouth.

"Thank you," said Master Fox sweetly, as he walked off. "Though it is cracked, you have a voice sure enough. But where are your wits?"

The flatterer lives at the expense of those who will listen to him.