Family Tree

　　Dog claps the book shut.

　　He looks all around.

　　There's a tree, old and tall.

　　Dog grins.

　　"May I?" he asks.

　　He points at the tree.


　　Wolf grins as well.

　　He nods.

　　"It's not a family tree," says Dog.

　　"It's a tree trunk," says Wolf.

　　"Just the thing," says Dog.

　　He lifts his hing leg.

　　Wolf lifts his leg, too.

　　And the both water the tree.

Wolf and Dog, P43
by Sylvia Vanden Heede, illustrated by Marije Tolman
translated by Bill Nagelkerke
ISBN 978-1-877579-38-7

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Rats!

　　"Oh," says Dog.

　　Now he gets it.


　　"Cap" becomes "pack".

　　And "live" becomes "evil",

　　But "did" stays "did",

　　no matter how you twist or turn it.


　　Dog puts his cap back on.

　　He buttons up his coat.


　　"Isn't this a great game?" asks Wolf.

　　Dog shakes his head.

　　"No," he says.

　　"On!" yells Wolf.

　　He rolls on the ground.

　　He's loving this!


　　But Dog doesn't laugh.

　　To him it's a silly game.

　　Still, he might as well try it.

　　He thinks hard.

　　Then he says, slyly:

　　"Wolf, you really are a star."

　　"Rats!" cried Wolf.


　　And he's absolutely right.

Wolf and Dog, P32-33
by Sylvia Vanden Heede, illustrated by Marije Tolman
translated by Bill Nagelkerke
ISBN 978-1-877579-38-7

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You Stole My Flea!

　　"Now I get it," says Wolf.

　　"That's where the flea's gone.

　　I thought something was missing.

　　But what? What was it?

　　I didn't know.

　　But now I do.

　　It was the flea.

　　I didn't give it to you.

　　You're wrong about that.

　　You took it from me.

　　You're a thief, Dog!

　　You stole my flea!"

Wolf and Dog, P16-17
by Sylvia Vanden Heede, illustrated by Marije Tolman
translated by Bill Nagelkerke
ISBN 978-1-877579-38-7

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Your Happy Friend

Dear Duncan,

　　As green crayon, I am writing for two reasons. One is to say that I like my work - loads of crocodiles, trees, dinosaurs and frogs. I have no problems and wish to congratulate you on a very successful "colouring things GREEN" career so far.

　　The second reason I write is for my friends, Yellow Crayon and Orange Crayon, who are no longer speaking to each other. Both crayons feel THEY should be the colour of the sun.

　　Please settle this soon because they're driving the rest of us CRAZY!


Your happy friend,
Green Crayon


The Day the Crayons Quit
by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
ISBN 978-0-00-674511-2

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Your Empty Friend

Dear Duncan,

　　You colour with me, but why?

　　Most of the time I'm the same colour as the page you are using me on - WHITE.

　　If I didn't have a black outline, you wouldn't even know I was THERE!

　　I'm not even in the rainbow.

　　I'm only used to colour SNOW or to fill in empty space between other things.

　　And it leaves me feeling ... ... well ... ... empty. We need to talk.


Your empty friend,
White Crayon


The Day the Crayons Quit
by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
ISBN 978-0-00-674511-2

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Your Beige Friend

Dear Duncan,

　　I'm tired of being called "light brown" or "dark tan" because I am neither.

　　I am BEIGE and I am proud.

　　I am also tired of being second place to Mr. Brown Crayon.

　　It's not fair that Brown gets all the bears, ponies and puppies while the only thing I get are turkey dinners (if I'm lucky) and wheat, and let's be honest - when was the last time you saw a kid excited about colouring wheat?


Your BEIGE friend,
Beige Crayon



The Day the Crayons Quit
by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
ISBN 978-0-00-674511-2

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I Think Turtle Did Too

　　Then I rubbed Turtle's tummy and pretended to snore. And that made Daddy laughed. Even though I was very big now, holding Turtle still felt pretty good.

　　"Night-night, my big boy," whispered Daddy.

　　"Night-night, my Daddy," I whispered.



　　"And night-night, my good-old, chewed-up, sewn-up, taped-up, ripped-up, raggedy Turtle."

　　Before I could count to thirty three, I fell asleep. And I think Turtle did too.



Turtle and Me
by Robbie H. Harris, illustrated by Tor Freeman
ISBN 978-1-4998-0046-3

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Lonely and Sad

　　When I was still a little kid and had to take a nap, sometimes I felt lonely and sad.

　　But as soon as I snuggled up with my soft and cuddly Turtle, I didn't feel lonely or sad anymore.

Turtle and Me
by Robbie H. Harris, illustrated by Tor Freeman
ISBN 978-1-4998-0046-3

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Egg Cream

　　One day, it happened.

　　Book fit perfectly into the girl's hands.

　　She took him everywhere, and Book thought he must be the girls favorite thing in the whole world.

　　But the truth was that there was someone else whom the girl really loved, too.

　　Because the girl also loved her dog, Egg Cream.

The Jacket
Words by Kirsten Hall, Pictures by Dasha Tolstikova
ISBN 978-1-59270-168-1

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And the Good Brown Earth

　　Next time Gram went to the vegetable patch, Joe came too, and the birds were singing, the trees were flowering, and the rain and the sun were chasing each other across the sky.

　　"Now's watching time," said Gram, keeping an eye on those angry birds, and she made a scarecrow and stuck it in the ground.

　　Joe watched too. "Gram! Gram!" he shouted. "There are green spikes coming up!"

And the Good Brown Earth
Kathy Henderson
ISBN 978-0-7636-3841-2

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India's Son Preference

　　India's son preference is actually better described as a daughter dis-preference. The latest India census data found only 927 girls for every thousand boys nationwide. India is in the center of an epidemic of female feticide, and, strangely, modern technology is to blame. When ultrasounds became available in the 1980s, "doctors" opened private clinics all over rural India that advertised sex-determination tests——a miracle solution to the perennial desire for sons. Low-income villagers were encouraged to take their fate into their own hands and abort the fetus if it was female.

　　The UN says two thousand girls are aborted every day now in India. In some parts of the country, there's such shortage of marriage-age girls that families are forced to share the same wife among several men or import brides from other states. I reported from one village in eastern India where every other household had a paro, or outside bride. Sex-selective abortion is now a crime in India. But although doctors can be imprisoned for revealing the gender of a fetus, they'll offer hints after an ultrasound instead. Tehy will say, "Your child will be beautiful like Lakshmi," if it's a girl, or they'll make a V sign for victory if it's a boy.

　　……

Sideways on A Scooter, Life and Love in India, P225
Miranda Kennedy
ISBN 978-1-4000-6786-2

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Besides Dowries

　　Radha's worry wasn't whether the girl was ready; it was how to fund the wedding. It had never crossed her mind to plan an event within her means. If she was to secure for her daughter an alliance that would get her out of the slums, she expected that she would have to meet the groom's family's highest standards for the nuptials. Wedding are, in general, the biggest lifetime expense for Indians of all income groups. Middle-class Hindu weddings mean a guest list tipping into the thousands and two full weeks of religion rituals, parties, and dinners——in other words, lifelong debt. In today's India of conspicuous spending and Bollywood glitz, the richest grooms arrive at their weddings in helicopters; their banquets feature extravagant flourishes such as spurting chocolate fountains. Indians spend an average of thirty-two thousand dollars on a wedding. That's seven thousand dollars more than the average American spends, even though Indians earn only 10 percent of the American per capita income.

Sideways on A Scooter, Life and Love in India, P197
Miranda Kennedy
ISBN 978-1-4000-6786-2

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The Red Shoes

　　As soon as Karen put on the red shoes, she began to dance.

　　She danced around the whole village.

　　"Red shoes, please stop! I'm tired," she said. But the red shoes did not stop.

The Red Shoes
A Story by Hans Christian Andersen
Retold by Joy Cowley
Illustrated by Yeong-ok Lee
ISBN 978-1-921790-86-7

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Peter and the Wolf

　　The wolf walked around the tree, licking his lips and watching the frightened bird and cat.

　　Peter ran quickly to the back yard and returned with a ladder and a rope. He put the ladder against the wall and climbed into the tree.

　　He whispered to the bird, "Fly in circles around the wolf's head to distract him. Be careful you don't get caught."

　　... ...

Peter and the Wolf
A Story by Sergei Prokofiev
Retold by Joy Cowley
Illustrated by Sook-hee Choi
ISBN 978-1-921790-55-3

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