Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet



Songs for April

Little Jack Horner



The Little Disaster



My Pretty Maid



The Ploughboy in Luck




The Sugar-Plum Tree

Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?

'Tis a marvel of great renown!

It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;

The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet

(As those who have tasted it say)

That good little children have only to eat

Of that fruit to be happy next day.


When you've got to the tree, you would have a hard time

To capture the fruit which I sing;

The tree is so tall that no person could climb

To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!

But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,

And a gingerbread dog prowls below—

And this is the way you contrive to get at

Those sugar-plums tempting you so:


You say but the word to that gingerbread dog

And he barks with such terrible zest

That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,

As her swelling proportions attest.

And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around

From this leafy limb unto that,

And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground—

Hurrah for that chocolate cat!


There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,

With stripings of scarlet or gold,

And you carry away of the treasure that rains

As much as your apron can hold!

So come, little child, cuddle closer to me

In your dainty white nightcap and gown,

And I'll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.


  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 6 Pinocchio Falls Asleep from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi King John and the Abbott from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin Tea Table Talk from The Seasons: Winter by Jane Marcet Crow-feather-Cloak Again (Part 1 of 2) from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum Pax Romana from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Betsy Holds the Reins (Part 3 of 3) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher The Avenger of Blood and the Cities of Refuge from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Harald Is King from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall Tamarack (Part 3 of 3) from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch Belling the Cat from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Am Cast upon a Strange Shore from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Apollo and Diana from A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price Peter Has To Tell His Story Many Times from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess The Far Country Story from The Sandman: His Ship Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
The Babie by Hugh Miller
The Sugar-Plum Tree by Eugene Field The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear Chanticleer by Celia Thaxter Hide and Seek by Walter de la Mare A Fable by Ralph Waldo Emerson America by Samuel Francis Smith
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Milkmaid and Her Pail

A Milkmaid had been out to milk the cows and was returning from the field with the shining milk pail balanced nicely on her head. As she walked along, her pretty head was busy with plans for the days to come.

"This good, rich milk," she reused, "will give me plenty of cream to churn. The butter I make I will take to market, and with the money I get for it I will buy a lot of eggs for hatching. How nice it will be when they are all hatched and the yard is full of fine young chicks. Then when May day comes I will sell them, and with the money I'll buy a lovely new dress to wear to the fair. All the young men will look at me. They will come and try to make love to me,—but I shall very quickly send them about their business!"

As she thought of how she would settle that matter, she tossed her head scornfully, and down fell the pail of milk to the ground. And all the milk flowed out, and with it vanished butter and eggs and chicks and new dress and all the milkmaid's pride.

Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.


[Illustration]