Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for May

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 36	Pinocchio Becomes a Boy at Last from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi	The Brave Three Hundred from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin	The Constant Singers from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess	The Treasure of King Labraid Lorc (Part 1 of 2) from The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said by Padraic Colum	The Stormy Cape from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge	Lost in a Forest (Part 2 of 2) from The Bears of Blue River by Charles Major	The Sound in the Treetops from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
	The Second Proclamation from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis Building a Fortified Village from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis Trapping Turkeys from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis	Ants with Wings from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch	The Ass and the Load of Salt from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter	I See Savages from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin	The Fishing Party from Merry Tales by Eleanor L. Skinner	Unc' Billy Possum Grows Hungry from The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum by Thornton Burgess	The Porpoise Story from The Sandman: His Sea Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
	The Bee and the Flower by Alfred Lord Tennyson	Runaway Brook by Elizabeth Lee Follen		Mine Host of "The Golden Apple" by Thomas Westwood	Bunches of Grapes by Walter de la Mare	September by Helen Hunt Jackson	The Funniest Thing in the World 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.