YAISHWARYAJ: {Awareness} My mama had a dancing heart

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Pedagogical Project

"The Joy of Reading"

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Dear Readers,

We would like to invite you to take part in a new project called "From Stories to Books".

The Stories for Everyone Team have been, for some time, gathering and selecting books that provide some sort of reflection on the fundamental ethical principles of our society, such as solidarity, courage, honesty, respect for differences and a sense of justice, matters that have deserved the attention of writers from various nationalities.

Therefore, the Stories for Everyone Team proposes to send, together with the usual weekly stories, and also free of charge, full texts of selected books.

In case you are interested in receiving each week, by email, a chapter of an extensive reading book, all you have to do is answer this message by writing the following sentence in the subject field:

"Yes, I am interested in participating in the project From Stories to Books."

Hoping that this new proposal will meet your utmost interest, we look forward to your reply.

The Stories for Everyone Team

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Dear Reader,

In order to reach a wider audience, the Stories for Everyone Team is now sending, along with the weekly story, another one, shorter and more suitable for early ages, so that younger children can also benefit from beautiful stories that will help them dream.

So you will receive not one but two stories every week.

We hope that our initiative will be useful for all that are in touch with children.

Best regards

Stories for Everyone Team

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This week's stories with PDF attachments:

- My mama had a dancing heart

- A musical chair

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My mama had a dancing heart

My mama had a dancing heart
and she shared that heart with me.

With a grin and a giggle,

a hug and a whistle, we'd slap our knees

and Mama would say:

"Bless the world

it feels like

a tip-tapping

song-singing

finger-snapping

kind of day.

Let's celebrate!"

And so we did.

When a warm spring rain

would come pinging on the windowpane,

we'd kick off our shoes

and out into the rain we'd go.

We'd dance

a frog-hopping

leaf-growing

flower-opening

hello spring ballet.

High-stepping and splashing,

the rain running down our faces

I'd slip-swish behind Mama

through the newly green grass.

And afterward

we'd read rain poems

and drink sassafras tea

with lemon curls floating.

And in summer

when the waves would come

plash-splashing on the shore,

out we'd go into the red-orange morning

with kites and balloons

tied to our wrists.

We'd do a seabird-flapping

dolphin-arching

hello summer ballet,

with me following Mama,

the sand stuck between the toes

of our up-and-down squish-squashing feet.

And afterward

we'd seashell-pile the windowsill

and drink lemonade cold.

And when the cool autumn winds

would come puff-puffing

through the clouds, and the hold-on-tight leaves

would finally let go and float-flutter

to the ground,

out we'd go into the eye-blinking blue air,

with Mama leading in a leaf-kicking

leg-lifting

hand-clapping

hello autumn ballet.

And afterward

we'd wax paper-press leaves

red and gold

and drink hot tea spiced.

And when the winter snows

came softly down

shawling the earth,

out we'd go

and do a body-flat

arms-moving-up-and-down

snow-angel

hello winter ballet.

And then we'd stand up,

Mama first,

and dance in slow motion,

like hand-mittened

galoshes-galumphing

funny old snowmen.

And afterward

we'd cut snowflakes

paper-white delicate

and sip cocoa

with marshmallows floating.

And now

after satin-ribboning my feet

and listening to the violins

sing-swelling

around me,

onto the stage I go

air-daring

leap-flying

wing-soaring

letting the

spring rain

summer waves

autumn leaves

winter snow

carry me along until

the music slows

and I feather-float

down … down

to the ground.

And afterward

I imagine that

I hear my mama saying:

"Bless the world

it feels like

a tip-tapping

song-singing

finger-snapping

kind of day.

Let's celebrate!"

My mama had a dancing heart
and she shared that heart with me.

Libba Moore Gray

My mama had a dancing heart

New York, Orchards books, 1995

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A musical chair

There was once a chair who knew about music. When someone sat in it, it started playing.

"It´s a music-box. It has special springs, which click whenever someone sits in it and make the music-box start playing," explained those who knew about these mechanisms.

Maybe it was exactly like that, but the truth is that one day the mechanism broke down. It stopped playing. It became a common chair, like millions of others, which can´t play.

"The springs must be worn out," said the fat old lady, who was the owner of the chair. "I´ll have it repaired."

However, in the repair shop, they disillusioned her:

"There´s nobody who can fix those chairs, any longer."

The chair went back to the lady´s house. Sometimes, longing for times past, she used to sit in it, recalling the melody, which the chair used to play.

The fat old lady brought back to her memory the time when she was young, slim and gentle, and went, secretly, to sit in the chair.

"Tlim, tlim, tlim and tlim." The chair used to play for the girl.

How she missed it! The lady sighed deeply and went to open the door, because the bell had rung. It was a friend of hers with a nephew, a shy little boy, hiding behind his aunt.

"Come into the living-room." The old lady invited them.

It so happened that the boy sat down in the broken chair. And, just like that, under the light weight of the boy, the chair started playing!

Scared, the boy popped up out of the chair and it stopped playing. Then, the old lady explained the mechanism of the chair and everything went back to normal.

It was a delight to listen to the chair all the afternoon.

"I must be too heavy for the sensitive chair," concluded the lady.

There and then they decided that, whenever he wished it, the boy could come and visit the lady and the chair. They both would be delighted to receive him.

A. Torrado

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You can visit us on Facebook where you can find more interesting stories about several different topics.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stories-for-Everyone/125862557478585

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Sir/Madam,

We are a group of people with some experience in the area of storytelling and we would like to share our project – The Joy of Reading – with everyone who is in touch with children and young people in general but above all with everyone that enjoys reading.

This project consists of sending stories for free on a weekly basis. So this particular e-mail and the ones that will follow it in the next weeks are intended to share some small stories with you. All the stories we send have some values within: respect for nature, tolerance, tenderness, responsibility, solidarity and many more. They all aim at developing the reading skills among young people, as well as allowing some moments of reflection and dialogue about topics connected with human values, which seem to have been somewhat forgotten in these times of materialism and hedonism.

We thank you for your attention and hope you will welcome this project (which, it is important to say, does not have any profitable aims).

If you know anyone interested in receiving the weekly stories by email, let us know by sending their emails to us.

Please let us know your opinion about the project.

Yours faithfully

The Pedagogical Team

sg@storiesforeveryone.com

stories4ev@gmail.com