YAISHWARYAJ: {Awareness} The man who had his hat off - Once upon an ordinary school day [2 Attachments]

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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 send an email to

books@storiesforeveryone.com or stories4ev@gmail.com 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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This week's stories with PDF attachments:

- The man who had his hat off

- Once upon an ordinary school day

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The man who had his hat off

Poor man, he passed from court to court, from judge to judge, lodging a complaint against a neighbour of his, who had taken some fallow lands from him.

"He has put his sheep there, and if I chase them away, he threatens me with a handgun. One of these days, I´ll have to forget that that is MY land, or I´ll have to by a handgun, myself..."

"I don´t think you should go that far." The judge told him.

"In that case, what does Your Excellency advise me to do?" asked the man, very politely.

"Nothing, nothing, because I don´t have time, now. Take the pendency to a colleague of mine and let me alone."

The man, with his hat off, went to another judge, who, coincidently, didn´t have time for him, either. They´re always very busy, these judges.

From this one to that one, from that one to this one, the man lost his time. He lost his patience, too.

Finally, from the toing and the froing, he seemed to go mad.

He could be seen in the main square of the city, talking to the trees. To each of them, he told his story in details, as if trees were people, or judges.

Such an imbecility drew the king´s attention, who was at his window.

As he had nothing else to amuse himself, he sent for the man.

"So, the trees talk to you!" said the king, in a mocking tone.

…

(To be continued in the PDF attachment)

A. Torrado

www.historiadodia.pt

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Once upon an ordinary school day

Once upon an ordinary school day, an ordinary boy woke from his ordinary dreams, got out of his ordinary bed, had an ordinary pee, an ordinary wash, put on his ordinary clothes, and ate his ordinary breakfast.

The ordinary boy brushed his ordinary teeth, kissed his ordinary mum goodbye and set off for his ordinary school. And as he walked through the ordinary streets, past the ordinary shops and across the ordinary roads, the ordinary boy thought his ordinary thoughts.

And when he reached the ordinary school the ordinary boy had an ordinary game of football with his ordinary friends until the ordinary school bell rang.

The ordinary boy went into his ordinary classroom and sat at his ordinary desk. Then, something quite out of the ordinary happened…

"Good morning, everybody!" said a quite extraordinary figure bounding into the classroom. "My name is Mister Gee and I´m your new teacher. Now, you don´t know me and I don´t know you, so, to help me get to know you, I´ve had an idea…"

As Mister Gee handed out paper he said, "For our first lesson together I want you to listen to some music and I want you to let the music make pictures in your heads. Is that clear?"

And the ordinary children whispered: "He´s barmy!" "He´s bonkers!" "He´s as nutty as a fruitcake!" "Music?" "Pictures?" "What´s he on about?" And Mister Gee said, "Shush, just close your eyes, open your ears and listen."

And the music began: a rumbling, rolling, thunderous music that boomed and crashed around the classroom.

Suddenly it stopped. And Mister Gee said:

"Tell me what the music made you think of."

…

(To be continued in the PDF attachment)

Colin McNaughton

Once Upon an Ordinary School Day

London, Andersen Press, 2004

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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