Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for September

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 27	The Fight between Pinocchio and His Companions from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi	Androclus and the Lion from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin	A Fisherman Robbed from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess	The Hen-wife's Son and the Princess Bright Brow (Part 1 of 3) from The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said by Padraic Colum	The Days of Chivalry from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge	"Understood Aunt Frances" (Part 1 of 4) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher	The Brave Young Prince from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
	Reading the London Company's Orders from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis Captain Smith a Member of the Council from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis Captain Smith Forced To Remain Aboard from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis	The Uses of Crabs from Seaside and Wayside, Book One by Julia McNair Wright	The Wolf and His Shadow from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter	I Make an Umbrella from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin	Little Black Ant from Nursery Tales from Many Lands by Eleanor L. and Ada M. Skinner	Bobby Coon Enters the Wrong House from The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum by Thornton Burgess	More Education from The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
	Friends by Abbie Farwell Brown	Daisies by Frank Dempster Sherman		The Dumb Soldier by Robert Louis Stevenson	All But Blind by Walter de la Mare	The Succession of the Four Sweet Months by Robert Herrick	Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter

The North Wind and the Sun

The North Wind and the Sun had a quarrel about which of them was the stronger. While they were disputing with much heat and bluster, a Traveler passed along the road wrapped in a cloak.

"Let us agree," said the Sun, "that he is the stronger who can strip that Traveler of his cloak."

"Very well," growled the North Wind, and at once sent a cold, howling blast against the Traveler.

With the first gust of wind the ends of the cloak whipped about the Traveler's body. But he immediately wrapped it closely around him, and the harder the Wind blew, the tighter he held it to him. The North Wind tore angrily at the cloak, but all his efforts were in vain.

Then the Sun began to shine. At first his beams were gentle, and in the pleasant warmth after the bitter cold of the North Wind, the Traveler unfastened his cloak and let it hang loosely from his shoulders. The Sun's rays grew warmer and warmer. The man took off his cap and mopped his brow. At last he became so heated that he pulled off his cloak, and, to escape the blazing sunshine, threw himself down in the welcome shade of a tree by the roadside.

Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail.