That was the song that
Cluckity sang for weeks and weeks, and all, as it seemed to her, to no purpose.
As fast as she laid an egg it was taken away from her, and she was left to
brood hopelessly over a comfortless chalk egg.
Poor Cluckity!
But all things come to
one who can wait. One April morning Cluckity was placed on a nest of fresh
clean straw in which were nestled thirteen fair white eggs. Food and drink were
placed near her, and Cluckity knew that her business for the next three weeks
was to keep those eggs warm.
What a time that was
for thinking. Nothing to do, but think.
Well, the eggs
hatched; and what a proud mother was Cluckity. “Chip! chip! cheep!” There never
was such music! Then she had to scratch very hard for a living. Life began to
grow earnest. One day Cluckity saw a huge cat prowling around. She was anxious.
She called to her chicks. But one of them did not run with the rest. He twirled
saucily on his yellow leg, and said he could take care of himself. Ah! The cat
took care of him! Pert little Peep never slept under his mother’s wing again. This is from a reader for 1rst and 2nd graders. It is unusual in that it
primarily focuses on conversation. Teachers may use the materials freely in the
development of lesson plans.
Stories And Pictures Of Domestic Animals
By Anna F. Burnham Boston: D. Lothrop & Co., Publishers, 30 And 32
Franklin Street copyright, 1879
This Bible story page is free for teachers, ministers and
parents to print and handout to children anywhere, in any quantity, for
any purpose no matter where they live in the world.
Timothy was taught to honor and understand God's word by the female members of his family. He was ready to serve God when he was called to do so. The story of Timothy is about understanding the importance of a reliable character. Timothy demonstrates to others that living for God, by His word, is even more important than whether or not people know you for some other impressive reputation. We don't really know what Timothy liked to do in his spare time, whether or not he was artistically talented or athletic or even if he was some official's son. But his character was such that God made sure he would be remembered by the church by including him in Paul's life and the life of the church.
Much of our identity as Christians is hidden in Jesus. We pass through the world without much fanfare, attending to the daily necessities of those around us, wondering if any person ever even notices who we are or what we do. Timothy had a very similar life as far as we know; he did suffer persecution and he did persevere with Paul's ministry when so many turned on the apostle. Timothy's loyalty to the church was unbending.
This age appropriate reading material was developed by teachers
for the purpose of introducing the Bible to the very young. The stories
under this category at Easter Egg Crafts have been simplified and a
singular moral or ethic is introduced to children in the reading of the
story aloud as was and still is an educational practice in most
Christian congregations today. Certainly the stories are far more
complicated in the scriptures than what you will read here. But you must
remember that these were written for very young students ages five to
eight. (age. 5-8) The materials are free for teachers, ministers and
parents to print and handout to children anywhere, in any quantity, for
any purpose no matter where they live in the world.
Paul had a very interesting history with Jesus. Although he was very bright, he also, hated the very people that God had sent his own Son to rescue from eternal death. Before he met Jesus in a vision, Paul was called Saul. God changed his name from Saul that means "asked for, prayed for" in Hebrew to Paul that means "small" in Latin. Jesus turned Paul's belligerent, hate-filled personality into that of a humble, God fearing, loving personality. In Bible times, many Jewish people were disappointed in the humility and sacrifice displayed in Jesus, in fact, so much so that they would not except him as The Messiah. They wanted to be powerful and rule over their enemies in a way that they had been treated in kind. This attitude burned inside of Paul, so much so that he had a great many Christians killed before changing into the kind of teacher that the church remembers him to have been. But Paul needed to learn to live and play by God's rules, not the rules of his temple or people. This was and still is a difficult lesson to teach and learn.
This age appropriate reading material was developed by teachers for the purpose of introducing the Bible to the very young. The stories under this category at Easter Egg Crafts have been simplified and a singular moral or ethic is introduced to children in the reading of the story aloud as was and still is an educational practice in most Christian congregations today. Certainly the stories are far more complicated in the scriptures than what you will read here. But you must remember that these were written for very young students ages five to eight. (age. 5-8) The materials are free for teachers, ministers and parents to print and handout to children anywhere, in any quantity, for any purpose no matter where they live in the world.
The story of David and Jonathan is an example of extreme loyalty in the scriptures. Jonathan, a prince and the son of Saul, is not only loyal to his good friend David, the next chosen King of Israel but also demonstrates extreme devotion to God. He is willing to give up his own title in order to maintain the will of God through the appointment of someone who will eventually take his inheritance of a throne. Jonathan gives up his crown, his own father's approval and his life in order to live according to God's will. This story is from 1 Samuel, chapter 20.
It was summer. The country was lovely just then. The cornfields were waving
yellow, the wheat was golden, the oats were still green, and the hay was
stacked in the meadows. Beyond the fields great forests and ponds of water
might be seen.
In the sunniest spot of all stood an old farmhouse, with deep canals around it.
At the water's edge grew great burdocks. It was just as wild there as in the
deepest wood, and in this snug place sat a duck upon her nest. She was waiting for
her brood to hatch.
At
last one eggshell after another began to crack. From each little egg came
"Cheep! cheep!" and then a little duckling's head.
"Quack! quack!" said the duck; and all the babies quacked too. Then
they looked all around. The mother let them look as much as they liked, for
green is good for the eyes.
"How big the world is!" said all the little ducklings.
"Do you think this is all the world?" asked the mother. "It
stretches a long way on the other side of the garden and on to the parson's
field, but I have never been so far as that. I hope you are all out. No, not
all; that large egg is still unbroken. I am really tired of sitting so
long." Then the duck sat down again.
"Well, how goes it?" asked an old duck who had come to pay her a
visit.
"There is one large egg that is taking a long time to hatch," replied
the mother. "But you must look at the ducklings. They are the finest I
have ever seen; they are all just like their father."
"Let me look at the egg which will not hatch," said the old duck.
"You may be sure that it is a turkey's egg. I was once cheated in that
way. Oh, you will have a great deal of trouble, for a turkey will not go into
the water. Yes, that's a turkey's egg. Leave it alone and teach the other
children to swim."
"No, I will sit on it a little longer," said the mother duck.
"Just as you please," said the old duck, and she went away.
At last the large egg cracked. "Cheep! cheep!" said the young one,
and tumbled out. How large it was! How ugly it was!
"I wonder if it can be a turkey chick," said the mother. "Well,
we shall see when we go to the pond. It must go into the water, even if I have
to push it in myself."
Next day the mother duck and all her little ones went down to the water.
Splash! she jumped in, and all the ducklings went in, too. They swam about very
easily, and the ugly duckling swam with them.
"No, it is not a turkey," said the mother duck. "See how well he
can use his legs. He is my own child! And he is not so very ugly either."
II
Then she took her family into the duck yard. As they went along, she told the
ducklings how to act.
"Keep close to me, so that no one can step on you," she said.
"Come; now, don't turn your toes in. A well-brought-up duck turns its toes
out, just like father and mother. Bow your heads before that old duck yonder.
She is the grandest duck here. One can tell that by the red rag around her leg.
That's a great honor, the greatest honor a duck can have. It shows that the
mistress doesn't want to lose her. Now bend your necks and say 'Quack!'"
They did so, but the other ducks did not seem glad to see them.
"Look!" they cried. "Here comes another brood, as if there were
not enough of us already. And oh, dear, how ugly that large one is! We won't
stand him."
Then one of the ducks flew at the ugly duckling and bit him in the neck.
"Let him alone," said the mother; "he is doing no harm."
"Perhaps not," said the duck who had bitten the poor duckling,
"but he is too ugly to stay here. He must be driven out."
"Those are pretty children that the mother has," said the old duck
with the rag around her leg. "They are all pretty but that one. What a
pity!"
"Yes," replied the mother duck, "he is not handsome, but he is
good-tempered, and he swims as well as any of the others. I think he will grow
to be pretty. Perhaps he stayed too long in the egg."
"Well, make yourselves at home," said the old duck. "If you find
an eel's head, you may bring it to me."
And they did make themselves at home—all but the poor ugly duckling. His life
was made quite miserable. The ducks bit him, and the hens pecked him. So it
went on the first day, and each day it grew worse.
The
poor duckling was very unhappy. At last he could stand it no longer, and he ran
away. As he flew over the fence, he frightened the little birds on the bushes.
"That is because I am so ugly," thought the duckling.
He
flew on until he came to a moor where some wild ducks lived. They laughed at
him and swam away from him.
Some
wild geese came by, and they laughed at the duckling, too. Just then some guns
went bang! bang! The hunters were all around. The hunting dogs came splash!
into the swamp, and one dashed close to the duckling. The dog looked at him and
went on.
"Well, I can be thankful for that," sighed he. "I am so ugly
that even the dog will not bite me."
When all was quiet, the duckling started out again. A storm was raging, and he
found shelter in a poor hut. Here lived an old woman with her cat and her hen.
The old woman could not see well, and she thought he was a fat duck. She kept
him three weeks, hoping that she would get some duck eggs, but the duckling did
not lay.
After a while the fresh air and sunshine streamed in at the open door, and the
duckling longed to be out on the water. The cat and the hen laughed when he
told them of his wish.
"You must be crazy," said the hen. "I do not wish to swim. The
cat does not; and I am sure our mistress does not."
"You do not understand me," said the duckling. "I will go out
into the wide world."
"Yes, do go," said the hen.
And the duckling went away. He swam on the water and dived, but still all the
animals passed him by because he was so ugly; and the poor duckling was
lonesome.
III
Now the winter came, and soon it was very cold. Snow and sleet fell, and the
ugly duckling had a very unhappy time.
One
evening a whole flock of handsome white birds rose out of the bushes. They were
swans. They gave a strange cry, and spreading their great wings, flew away to
warmer lands and open lakes.
The ugly duckling felt quite strange, and he gave such a loud cry that he
frightened himself. He could not forget those beautiful happy birds. He knew
not where they had gone, but he wished he could have gone with them.
The winter grew cold—very cold. The duckling swam about in the water to keep
from freezing, but every night the hole in which he swam became smaller and
smaller. At last he was frozen fast in the ice.
Early the next morning a farmer found the duckling and took him to the
farmhouse. There in a warm room the duckling came to himself again. The
children wished to play with him, but he was afraid of them.
In his terror he fluttered into the milk pan and splashed the milk about the
room. The woman clapped her hands at him, and that frightened him still more.
He flew into the butter tub and then into the meal barrel.
How he did look then! The children laughed and screamed. The woman chased him
with the fire tongs. The door stood open, and the duckling slipped out into the
snow.
It was a cruel, hard winter, and he nearly froze. At last the warm sun began to
shine, and the larks to sing. The duckling flapped his wings and found that
they were strong. Away he flew over the meadows and fields.
Soon he found himself in a beautiful garden where the apple trees were in full
bloom, and the long branches of the willow trees hung over the shores of the
lake. Just in front of him he saw three beautiful white swans swimming lightly
over the water.
"I will fly to those beautiful birds," he said. "They will kill
me because I am so ugly; but it is all the same. It is better to be killed by
them than to be bitten by the ducks and pecked by the hens."
So he flew into the water and swam towards the beautiful birds. They saw the
duckling and came sailing down toward him. He bowed his head saying, "Kill
me, oh, kill me."
But what was this he saw in the clear water? It was his own image, and lo! he
was no longer a clumsy dark-gray bird, but a—swan, a beautiful white swan. It
matters not if one was born in a duck yard, if one has only lain in a swan's egg.
The other swans swam around him to welcome him.
Some little children came into the
garden with corn and other grains which they threw into the water. The smallest
one cried, "Oh, see! there is a new swan, and it is more beautiful than
any of the others."
The ugly duckling was shy and at first
hid his head under his wing. Then he felt so happy that he raised his neck and
said, "I never dreamed of so much happiness when I was an ugly duckling."
The Ugly Duckling Read Along by Little Readers
visit their YouTube channel for many more stories!
The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a British children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter that follows mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit as he is chased about the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home to his mother who puts him to bed after dosing him with camomile
tea. The tale was written for five-year-old Noel Moore, son of Potter's
former governess Annie Carter Moore, in 1893. It was revised and
privately printed by Potter in 1901 after several publishers' rejections
but was printed in a trade edition by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1902.
The book was a success, and multiple reprints were issued in the years
immediately following its debut. It has been translated into 36
languages and with 45 million copies sold it is one of the best-selling books of all time.
The book has generated considerable merchandise over the decades
since its release for both children and adults with toys, dishes, foods,
clothing, videos and other products made available. Potter was one of
the first to be responsible for such merchandise when she patented a
Peter Rabbit doll in 1903 and followed it almost immediately with a
Peter Rabbit board game.
The story focuses on a family of anthropomorphic rabbits, the widowed
mother rabbit cautioning her young against entering a vegetable garden
grown by a man named Mr. McGregor, who had baked her deceased husband
into a pie. Whereas her three daughters obediently refrain from entering
the garden, her rebellious son Peter defies his mother by trespassing
into the garden to snack on some vegetables,
losing his clothes along the way. While there, Peter is seen by Mr.
McGregor and loses his clothes trying to escape. He finds difficulties
in wriggling beneath the opening in the fence through which he'd managed
to slide past earlier to invade the garden, and later finds that his abandoned clothing articles were used to dress Mr. McGregor's scarecrow.
After returning home, a sickened Peter is bedridden by his mother
whereas his well-behaved sisters receive a sumptuous dinner of milk and
berries as opposed to Peter's supper of chamomile tea.
Through the 1890s, Potter sent illustrated story letters to the children of her former governess,
Annie Moore, and, in 1900, Moore, realizing the commercial potential of
Potter's stories, suggested they be made into books. Potter embraced
the suggestion, and, borrowing her complete correspondence (which had
been carefully preserved by the Moore children), selected a letter
written on 4 September 1893 to five-year-old Noel that featured a tale
about a rabbit named Peter. Potter had owned a pet rabbit called Peter
Piper.
Potter biographer Linda Lear explains: "The original letter was too
short to make a proper book so [Potter] added some text and made new
black-and-white illustrations...and made it more suspenseful. These
changes slowed the narrative down, added intrigue, and gave a greater
sense of the passage of time. Then she copied it out into a
stiff-covered exercise book, and painted a colored frontispiece showing
Mrs. Rabbit dosing Peter with camomile tea".
Margaret Wise Brown (May 23, 1910 – November 13, 1952) was a prolific American author of children's literature, including the books Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, both illustrated by Clement Hurd.
The middle child of three whose parents suffered from an unhappy marriage, Brown was born in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, granddaughter of Benjamin Gratz Brown. In 1923 she attended boarding school in Woodstock, Connecticut, while her parents were living in Canterbury. She began attending Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1926, where she did well in athletics. After graduation in 1928, Brown went on to Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia.
Following her graduation with a B.A. in English from Hollins in 1932, Brown worked as a teacher, and also studied art. It was while working at the Bank Street Experimental School in New York City that she started writing books for children. Her first book was When the Wind Blew, published in 1937 by Harper & Brothers.
Brown then went on to develop her Here and Now stories, and later the Noisy Book series while employed as an editor at William R. Scott. Her popular book The Little Fur Family, illustrated by Garth Williams, was published in 1946. Also in 1946, Brown wrote The Little Island and Little Lost Lamb, both under the pseudonym Golden MacDonald and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard. The former won a Caldecott Honor recognition in 1946 and the latter the Caldecott Medal in 1947. In the early 1950s, she wrote several books for the Little Golden Books series including The Color Kittens, Mister Dog and Scuppers The Sailor Dog.
In 1952, Brown met James Stillman 'Pebble' Rockefeller Jr. at a
party, and they became engaged. Later that year, while on a book tour in
Nice, France, she unexpectedly died at 42 of an embolism, two weeks after emergency surgery for an ovarian cyst.
(Kicking up her leg to show the doctor how well she was feeling
ironically caused a blood clot that had formed in her leg to dislodge
and travel to her heart.)
By the time of Brown's death, she had authored well over one hundred
books. Her ashes were scattered at her island home, "The Only House" in Vinalhaven, Maine.
Brown left behind over 70 unpublished manuscripts. Her sister,
Roberta Brown Rauch, after unsuccessfully trying to sell them, kept them
in a cedar trunk for decades. In 1991, Amy Gary of WaterMark Inc.,
rediscovered the paper-clipped bundles of the more than 500 typewritten
pages and set about getting the stories published.
Many of Brown's books have been re-released with new illustrations
decades after their original publication. Many more of her books are
still in print with the original illustrations. Her books have been
translated into several languages; biographies on Brown for children
have been written by Leonard S. Marcus (Harper Paperbacks, 1999) and
Jill C. Wheeler (Checkerboard Books, 2006). Have a Carrot, a Freudian
analysis of her "classic series" of bunny books has been written by
Claudia H. Pearson (Look Again Press, 2010).
Edwin DuBose Heyward wrote the children's book The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes (1939).
Heyward was born in 1885 in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a descendant of Judge Thomas Heyward, Jr., a South Carolina signer of the United States Declaration of Independence.
As a child and young man, Heyward was frequently ill. He contracted polio when he was eighteen, then two years later contracted typhoid fever and the following year fell ill with pleurisy.
Although he described himself as " a miserable student" who was
uninterested in learning, and dropped out of high school in his first
year at age fourteen, he had a lifelong and serious interest in
literature. He passed the time in his sickbed writing verses and
stories.
Get ready for all of the laughs, adventure and hip-hopping good times in
this all-new imaginative and modern retelling of Uncle Remus'
best-loved tales. Parents and kids alike will delight in the escapades
of the most mischievous and clever Brer Rabbit as he gleefully outwits
Brer Fox, Brer Bear and a whole cast of other critters! With
irresistible and toe-tapping new songs and an all-star lineup of voice
talent (Wayne Brady, Nick Cannon, Danny Glover, D.L. Hughley and Wanda
Sykes), The Adventures of Brer Rabbit is sure to be a family favorite
for years to come!
Uncle Remus is a fictional character, the title character and fictional narrator of a collection of African-American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881. A journalist in post-Reconstruction Atlanta, Georgia, Harris produced seven Uncle Remus books. Uncle Remus is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore, collected from Southern United States African-Americans. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesop's Fables and the stories of Jean de La Fontaine. Uncle Remus is a kindly old former slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him.
Harris created the first version of the Uncle Remus character for the Atlanta Constitution in 1876 after inheriting a column formerly written by Samuel W. Small,
who had taken leave from the paper. In these character sketches, Remus
would visit the newspaper office to discuss the social and racial issues
of the day. By 1877 Small had returned to the Constitution and resumed his column.
Harris did not intend to continue the Remus character. But when Small
left the paper again, Harris reprised Remus. He realized the literary
value of the stories he had heard from the slaves of Turnwold
Plantation. Harris set out to record the stories and insisted that they
be verified by two independent sources before he would publish them. He
found the research more difficult given his professional duties, urban
location, race and, eventually, fame.
On July 20, 1879, Harris published "The Story of Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Fox as Told by Uncle Remus" in the Atlanta Constitution. It was the first of 34 plantation fables that would be compiled in Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880). The stories, mostly collected directly from the African-American oral storytelling tradition, were revolutionary in their use of dialect, animal personages, and serialized landscapes.
Remus' stories featured a trickster hero called Br'er Rabbit
("Brother" Rabbit), who used his wits against adversity, though his
efforts did not always succeed. Br'er Rabbit is a direct interpretation
of Yoruba tales of Hare, though some others posit Native American influences as well.
The scholar Stella Brewer Brookes asserts, "Never has the trickster
been better exemplified than in the Br'er Rabbit of Harris."
Br'er Rabbit was accompanied by friends and enemies, such as Br'er Fox,
Br'er Bear, Br'er Terrapin, and Br'er Wolf. The stories represented a
significant break from the fairy tales
of the Western tradition: instead of a singular event in a singular
story, the critters on the plantation existed in an ongoing community
saga, time immemorial.
Harris described Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin,
as a major influence on the characters of Uncle Remus and the Little
Boy. When he read Stowe's novel in 1862, he said that it "made a more
vivid impression upon my mind than anything I have ever read since." Interpreting Uncle Tom's Cabin
as a "wonderful defense of slavery," Harris argued that Stowe's "genius
took possession of her and compelled her, in spite of her avowed
purpose, to give a very fair picture of the institution she had intended
to condemn." In Harris's view, the "real moral that Mrs. Stowe's book
teaches is that the. . . realities [of slavery], under the best and
happiest conditions, possess a romantic beauty and tenderness all their
own."
The Uncle Remus stories garnered critical acclaim and achieved
popular success well into the 20th century. Harris published at least
twenty-nine books, of which nine books were compiled of his published
Uncle Remus stories, including Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880), Nights with Uncle Remus (1883), Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892), The Tar Baby and Other Rhymes of Uncle Remus (1904), Told by Uncle Remus: New Stories of the Old Plantation (1905), Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit (1907). The last three books written by Joel Chandler Harris were published after his death which included Uncle Remus and the Little Boy (1910), Uncle Remus Returns (1918), and Seven Tales of Uncle Remus
(1948). The tales, 185 in sum, became immensely popular among both
black and white readers in the North and South. Few people outside of
the South had heard accents like those spoken in the tales, and the
dialect had never been legitimately and faithfully recorded in print.
To
Northern and international readers, the stories were a "revelation of
the unknown." Mark Twain noted in 1883, "in the matter of writing [the African-American dialect], he is the only master the country has produced."
The stories introduced international readers to the American South. Rudyard Kipling
wrote in a letter to Harris that the tales "ran like wild fire through
an English Public school.... [We] found ourselves quoting whole pages of
Uncle Remus that had got mixed in with the fabric of the old school
life." The Uncle Remus tales have since been translated into more than forty languages.
James Weldon Johnson called the collection "the greatest body of folklore America has produced."
The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real) is a children's novel written by Margery Williams and illustrated by William Nicholson. It chronicles the story of a stuffed rabbit and his quest to become real through the love of his owner. The book was first published in 1922 and has been republished many times since.
The Velveteen Rabbit was Williams' first children's book. It has been awarded the IRA/CBC Children's Choice award. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named the book one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children."
A stuffed rabbit sewn from velveteen is given as a Christmas present
to a small boy, but is neglected for toys of higher quality or function,
which shun him in response. The rabbit is informed of magically
becoming Real by the wisest and oldest toy in the nursery as a result of
extreme adoration and love from children, and he is awed by this
concept; however, his chances of achieving this wish are slight.
One night, after the boy has misplaced his cherished china dog, he is
pacified through the presence of the rabbit, who attracts more
attention from his owner from then onward as a result, to the extent of
his promotion to the position of the child's favorite toy. However, when
the toy rabbit's owner contracts scarlet fever, he is prescribed a trip
to the seashore and is pacified upon receiving a stuffed rabbit of
higher quality as a replacement for the Velveteen Rabbit, which must be
burned alongside all of the other playthings due to potential bacteria.
Before the rabbit can meet a painful demise, he is greeted by the
Nursery Fairy, who transforms him into a living rabbit to spare him from
an agonizing fate, as he'd acquired greater affection from the boy than
all of the other toys and surpassed all qualifications required. The
rabbit accompanies several others in rejoicing, gleefully upon having
received his dream.
"When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real." Margery Williams' enchanting story about a toy rabbit will live forever in the annals of children's literature, coming alive through this unforgettable rendition.
" Told by Meryl Streep,
Music by George Winston,
Illustrated by David Jorgensen
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