Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for April

Little Jack Horner

The Little Disaster

My Pretty Maid

The Ploughboy in Luck

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 8	Geppetto Makes Pinocchio New Feet from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi	Bruce and the Spider from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin	Jenny Wren Arrives from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess	Through the Three Woods and to the King's Castle from The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum	A Great World Power from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge	A Short Morning (Part 2 of 2) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher	Saint David from Our Island Saints by Amy Steedman
	Gyda's Saucy Message from Viking Tales by Jennie Hall	The Call of Wild Geese (Part 1 of 3) from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch	The Boy and the Filberts from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter	I Visit the Wreck from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin	Arcas and Callisto from A Child's Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales by Margaret Evans Price	Prickly Porky Nearly Chokes from The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton Burgess	The Unloading Story from The Sandman: His Ship Stories by Willliam J. Hopkins
	The Night Wind by Eugene Field	Humility by Robert Herrick	Disobedience by A. A. Milne	The Sea, Anonymous	Unstooping by Walter de la Mare	God Bless Our Native Land by C. T. Brooks	Lullaby of an Infant Chief by Sir Walter Scott

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.

"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.