"Now remember," Mother said, "your father and I are bringing
some guests by after opera, so please keep the house neat."
"Quite so," added Father, tucking his scarf inside his coat.
Mother peered into the hall mirror and carefully pinned her
hat in place, then knelt and kissed both children good-bye.
“Oh, dear!” thought Sal. “This cannot be true!”
Standing on the stool, she looked in the mirror
and wiggled her tooth again.
Sure enough, it was loose! You could even see it wiggle.
“Ma-a-a-ma!” she cried.
“One of my teeth is loose!
It will hurt and I’ll have to stay in bed!
I won’t be able to eat my breakfast
and go with Daddy to Buck’s Harbor!”
She came running down the stairs and into the kitchen.
The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot July
The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot July 25, 1909 (Picture Puffins)
(1987/08/01)
Alice Provensen、Martin
Out of the clouds, right over their overheads,
soars a great white airship.
And a man is sitting in a basket, driving it through the air!
What a wonderful sight!
It is the first airship seen over the city of Cambrai.
Papa Bleriot invites everyone to the cafe.
They toast the valiant aeronaut and each other.
And Cesar, the brave Juvet boy.
And the pumpkins. Everyone is happy.
Everyone but Louis Bleriot.
Now he has only one wish.
He says to his family.
“I, too, will build a flying machine,
A great white bird.
We will work hard.
We will all fly through the air like swallows!”
Yuji was flying his model plane in the meadow.
A fox came out of the forest and said,
“My, what a nice airplane!
Won’t you give it to me, Yuji?”
“No, it’s my favorite toy.
It’s my greatest treasure.”
The fox took one small sky blue seed
out of his pocket and said,
“Then trade it for my treasure.”
It was Gauche’s job to play the cello at the cinema in town.
One afternoon all the musicians were sitting in a circle
Rehearsing the Sixth Symphony for the town’s upcoming concert.
An old crab’s tale and princess Uriko and Amanjaku
“Oh, little crabs, oh little crabs, wherefore are you headed?”
“To Monkeyville, to seek revenge!”
“And those things you have around your waist…that might those be?”
“The best millet dumplings under the sun!”
“Let me partake of one. Let us be friends.”
“Well and good, if it means that we will be friends.”
Then Princess Uriko started to weave and weave and weave again.
And when she wove with a swoosh and a whoosh and a flop and a drob,
tricky little prickly little Amanjaku came back every time
with his mimicky swooshes and whooshes and flops and drobs.
An old crab’s tale and princess Uriko and Amanjaku
“Oh, little crabs, oh little crabs, wherefore are you headed?”
“To Monkeyville, to seek revenge!”
“And those things you have around your waist…that might those be?”
“The best millet dumplings under the sun!”
“Let me partake of one. Let us be friends.”
“Well and good, if it means that we will be friends.”
Then Princess Uriko started to weave and weave and weave again.
And when she wove with a swoosh and a whoosh and a flop and a drob,
tricky little prickly little Amanjaku came back every time
with his mimicky swooshes and whooshes and flops and drobs.
Pancakes, Pancakes!・Walter the Baker / Eric Carle
"Mother," said Jack, "I'd like to have a big pancake for breakfast."
"I am busy and you will have to help me," she said.
"How can I help?" asked Jack.
"We'll need some flour," she replied.
The Lost Lake・The Boy of the Three-Year Nap / Allen Say
"We're off to the Lost Lake, my lad."
"How can you lose a lake?"
"No one's found it, that's how." Dad was smiling!
"Granpa and I used to go there a long time ago.
It was our special place, so don't tell any of your friends."
Sometimes in Ivy there was an empty feeling,
and the emptiness ached; it ached so much
that she had to say something quickly in case
she cried, and, "I don't care at all," said Ivy.
A mouse sat under a tree.
He was reading a book.
A weasel jumped out and caught the mouse.
The weasel took the mouse home.
“Ah!” said the weasel.
“I am going to make mouse soup.”
“Oh!” said the mouse.
“I am going to be mouse soup.”
Bee and the mud
Two large stones
The crickets
The thorn bush
“Papa, we are all in bed now,”
said the mouse boys.
“Please tell us a tale.”
“I will do better than that,” said Papa.
“I will tell you seven tales
– one for each of you –
If you promise
to go right to sleep
when I am done.”
“Oh yes, we will,”
said the boys.
A miller had three sons,
and when he died he left them nothing but
his mill, his donkey, and his cat.
The sons didn’t send for a lawyer,
because they knew their whole legacy would have gone for frees.
But it didn’t take them long to decide who should get what.
The eldest got the mill, the second got the donkey,
and nothing was left for the youngest but the cat.
Ben and Margaret pedaled faster
when they saw the black rain cloud rolling in.
They had hoped to play baseball with some friends that afternoon.
“I guess,” said Margaret,
“I’ll go home and study for that geography test tomorrow.”
“Me, too,” answered Ben,
as he turned his bike down the road that led to his house.
“See you later.”
Study for the geography test on great landmarks of the world.
Ben and Margaret pedaled faster
when they saw the black rain cloud rolling in.
They had hoped to play baseball with some friends that afternoon.
“I guess,” said Margaret,
“I’ll go home and study for that geography test tomorrow.”
“Me, too,” answered Ben,
as he turned his bike down the road that led to his house.
“See you later.”
Study for the geography test on great landmarks of the world.
Some distance beyond the bridge Alan stopped to read a sign.
It said: ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NO DOGS ALLOWED IN THIS GARDEN.
At the bottom it was signed: ABDUL GASAZI, RETIRED MAGICIAN.
Behind the sign stood a vine-covered wall with an open doorway.
Alan took the warning quite seriously.
He turned to leave, but as he did, Fritz gave a tremendous tug
and snapped right out of his collar.
He bolted straight ahead through the open door,
with Alan running right behind.
"Oh well, Florian," sighed Farmer Claas, "we have both grown old.
But tomorrow Tractor Max is coming.
He is young and strong, and everything will be different.
He will work for both of us, and you will be able to eat grass and
clover in the meadow all day.
Won't that splendid?"
Florian neighed and jumped about in his stable like a young colt,
and that night he dreamed of a red tractor called Max who became his
good friend.
He watched two ladies dressed in pinks stroll
in the shade of an old Sphinx.
He heard one say:
"I do adore the things they sell in the crocodile store."
His eyes grew wide:
"A store for me?
This is something I've got to see."
Moseying down his street one morning,
Zeke Pippin found a harmonica.
He didn’t exactly find it.
It fell at his feet from a garbage wagon
that happened to be rumbling by.
That piece of garbage changed his whole life.
小心大野狼（Beware Of The Storybook Wolves）
Every night herb’s mother would read him a bedtime story.
Sometimes it was about a big wolf who terrified little girlls and their grandmothers with his chilling growl and his big yellow teeth. You could tell from
Herb’s mother would smile to herself because she knew that storybook wolves are not at all dangerous.
哈利海边历险记 Harry by the Sea
Harry was a white dog with black spots who like everything about the seashore, except… the hot sun.
One day when the sun was hotter than ever, Harry looked for a shady place to sit . but when he tried to get under the family’s beach umbrella…
It was too crowded and the family made him leaves.
When he crawled into the children’s sand castle…
The walls fell in and the children chased him away.
When he walked in the shade that a fat lady made…
She became angry and made him stop following her.
She unhooked the largest frying pan, the one that could cook breakfast for half a dozen people all at once, and took some candies from the jar on the dresser and put them in an old paper bag. Then, to Wentworth's sullen bewilderment, she took him by a sticky hand and headed back down toward the stream.
Things still looked very normal down there, but she was not going to let that fool her. All the trout had fled, and the birds weren't singing.
She found a place on the riverbank with the right-sized bush. Then she found a stone and hammered a piece of wood into the ground as hard as she could, close to the edge of the water, and tied the bag of sweets to it. Tiffany was the kind of child who always carried a piece of string.
"Candy, Wentworth," she shouted.
She gripped the frying pan and stepped smartly behind the bush.
Wentworth trotted over to the sweets and tried to pick up the bag. It wouldn't move.
"I wanna go-a toy-lut!" he yelled, because it was a threat that usually worked. His fat fingers scrabbled at the knots.
Tiffany watched the water carefully. Was it getting darker? Was it getting greener? Was that just waterweed down there? Were those bubbles just a trout, laughing?
No.
She ran out of her hiding place with the frying pan swinging like a bat. The screaming monster, leaping out of the water, met the frying pan coming the other way with a clang.
It was a good clang, with the oiyoiyoioioioioioinnnnnggggggg that is the mark of a clang well done.
The creature hung there for a moment, few teeth and bits of green weed splashing into the water, then slid down slowly and sank with some massive bubbles.
The water cleared and was once again the same old river, shallow and icy cold and floored with pebbles.
"Wanna wanna sweeties!" screamed Wentworth, who never noticed anything else in the presence of sweets.
Tiffany undid the string and gave them to him. He ate them far too quickly, as he always did with sweets. She waited until he was sick, then went back home in a thoughtful state of mind.
Voice is certainly most noticeable when it's a unique-sounding 1st-person voice, but good voice is to be had in lots of places. It's about suiting your word choices and pacing to the story you're telling. A perfect match adds depth and texture and nuance to the text; it tells you something about the characters you're reading about and the story being told.
01 - Monday afternoon Wendell Fultz's mother told him to clean his room. "It's turning into a pigsty," she said.
02L - Wendell went upstair. Much to his surprise, a large pig was sitting on his bed.
03L - "Pardon me," said Wendell. He shoved some toys into his closet. But the pig didn't seem to mind the mess, and Wendell found that he didn't mind the pig, either.
He decided to take a break.
04 - When Wendell's mother came to look at his room, the pig was hiding, but the mess was still there. She threw up her hands. "Okey, Wendell," she said. "If you want to live in a pigsty, that's up to you."
05 - Wendell could hardly believe his luck. "Now I can live however I want."
He didn't even worry when he came home on Tuesday and found a second pig in his room. The mess had grown a bit worse, but he was able to jam most of it under his bed.
"Pigs are all right," he said, "as long as it's only one or two."
06L - I fact, they had a wonderful time. They played Monopoly until late each night...
06R - ...and left the pieces lying all over the floor.
07L - They had paper airplane wars and pillow fights.
07R - The bed became a trampoline.
08 - Then two more pigs showed up. The mess just grew and grew.
09L - That night when Wendell went to bed, the pigs were lying everywhere. They rolled up in his blankets and hogged his pillows, too.
10L - And Friday when he got home from school, he saw that someone had been sitting on his basketball.
11R - "Sorry," she said, "but your room is your responsibility." She handed him a broom.
12 - Wendell started to complain. The mess was too huge. But suddenly he remembered a saying he'd heard, that "many hooves make light work."
He marched upstairs and organized a cleaning crew.
13L - They swept and scoured, polished and scrubbed.
13R - Later that afternoon, Wendell inspected his room and pronounced it "clean".
14 - In fact, it was a bit too clean, from a pig's point of view. So while Wendell inspected, the pigs prepared to go home. One of them made a phone call, and a farm truck came to pick them up. They hugged and grunted and oinks "good-bye".
15 - From that day on, Wendell kept his room clean except for those nights when his friends came by to play Monopoly.
zoo
but there were masses of cars on the road, and it took ages to get there.
After a while Harry and I got really bored. So we had a fight. Harry started crying and dad told me off. It’s not fair, he never tells Harry off, it’s always my fault.
But there were masses of cars on the road, and it took ages to get there. After a while Harry and I got really bored. So we had a fight. Harry started crying and Dad told me off. It's not fair, he never tells Harry off.
Harry was a white dog with black spots. On his birthday, he got a present from Grandma. It was a woolen sweater with roses on it. Harry did not like it the moment he saw it. He didn't like the roses.
When he tried it on, he felt cosy(暖和的) and snug(舒适的). But he still didn't like the roses. He thought it was the silliest sweater he'd ever seen.
The next day when Harry went into town with the children, he wore his new sweater. When people saw it, they laughed. When dogs saw it, they barked. Harry made up his mind then and there(当时当地) to lose Grandma's present.
When they went into a big store to shop, the children took off his sweater and let him carry it. This was just what Harry wanted. First he tried to lose it in the pet department-but a man found it and gave it back. Then he tried to lose it in the grocery(食品杂货店) department-but a lady found it and gave it back. He tried to lose it in the flower department-but a little boy found it and gave it back. The children didn't let Harry carry it any more. They made him wear it. As they started home, Harry was beginning to think he'd never lose it. When he got home, his friends were waiting to play with him. But Harry didn't feel like playing so they left him alone. As he sat wondering what to do, Harry noticed a loose stitch(针脚) in his sweater. He pulled at the wool-just a little at first-then a bit more-and a little bit more. Harry didn't know it, but a bird was watching.
In a minute, Harry had pulled out quite a long piece of the wool. The end of it lay on the grass behind him. Suddenly the bird flew down. Quick as a flash she took the end of the wool in her beak(喙状嘴) and flew away with it!It all happened before Harry could even blink(眨眼). The sweater began to disappear right before Harry's eyes.
Ox-Cart Man
in October he backed his ox into his cart and he and his family filled it up with everything they made or grew all year long that was left over.
He packed a bag of wool he sheared from the sheep in apirl.
(1981/04/27)
Chris Van Allsburg
"Now remember," Mother said, "your father and I are bringing
some guests by after opera, so please keep the house neat."
"Quite so," added Father, tucking his scarf inside his coat.
Mother peered into the hall mirror and carefully pinned her
hat in place, then knelt and kissed both children good-bye.