YAISHWARYAJ: {Awareness} One green apple - Mary the biscuit [2 Attachments]

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Pedagogical Project

"The Joy of Reading"

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STORIES FOR EVERYONE – stories in slideshare

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This week's stories with PDF attachments:

- One green apple

- Mary, the Biscuit

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One green apple

This is my second day in the new school in the new country.

There are to be no lessons today because we are going somewhere. Other days will not be like this one. Tomorrow I will go again to the class where I will learn to speak English.

Mothers drive us to the start of an orchard where a hay wagon is waiting. We climb on and lean against the bundles of hay. The wagon is pulled by a tractor and we jolt along. I think it odd to have boys and girls sit together. It was not like this in my village.

The students know each other, but they don´t know me and I don´t know them. I can´t understand them when they speak, and I can´t speak to them. Some are friendly. But some look at me coldly and smile cruel smiles. I hear my country mentioned, not fondly.

I would prefer to go home. My father has explained to me that we are not always liked here. "Our home country and our new one have had difficulties," he says. "But it will be good for us here in time."

How much time, I wonder.

I am different, too, in other ways. My jeans and T-shirt look like theirs, but my dupatta covers my head and shoulders. I have not seen anyone else wearing a dupatta, though all the girls and women in my home country do.

The girl who sits next to me smiles and points to herself. "Anna," she says. She points to me. "Farah!"

I nod and say, "Farah," which is my name. Then I look across the field where cows graze.

I am tight inside myself.

Three dogs come and run in front of us. I think they belong here and know the way. I once had a dog called Haddis.

We stop at a place where apple trees bunch together. I find out we are to pick the fruit. Old apples have fallen in the grass. The three dogs are eating them, crunch, crunch, crunch.

Their crunches sound like Haddis´s.

Our teacher gathers us around her. She talks to the class. Then she looks at me in a kind way. "One," she says. She touches an apple, then picks it. "One," she says again. I am to take only one, as the other students have done. I nod. I want to say, "I understand. It´s not that I am stupid. It is just that I am lost in this new place." But I don´t know how to tell her.

I pull away from the rest. Beside me is a tree, shorter than the others, that does not seem to belong. It is small and alone, like me. A few hard green apples hang from its branches. I twist one off. It fits perfectly in my hand.

We hold our apples and run and slide down a hill. The dogs race ahead. Their ears blow backward, inside out, pink and shiny.

At the bottom of the hill is a little crooked house made of wood. I wonder if a cow lives in it, or a goat. Perhaps it is the home of a shepherd.

In the house is a wooden machine with a metal handle. I see no cow or goat or shepherd. The house is here for some other reason.

… (you can read the whole story in the PDF attachment

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Mary, the Biscuit

There was once a biscuit whose name was Mary, and one day she said that Mary, only Mary wasn´t enough. She would like to be at least Mary Emily, with all due respect. Her friends in the pack complied to her wishes. But, when one such a biscuit starts demanding things, she is difficult to stop.

That´s right, she won´t stop at all...

"On second thoughts, I won´t do without surnames. From now on I want to be Mrs Mary Emily Honey Souster Wheat Redoundet Flour."

Such a long and twisted name is difficult to know by heart.

Some of the biscuits whose name was simply Mary called her Mary Wheat Honey Souster and some sort of Flour. Others called her Mary Redondet Honey Wheat Souster Emily, and the most forgetful ones merely Mary Wheat Flour, which enraged her.

… (you can read the whole story in the PDF attachment)

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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