A Collection of Original Short Stories
For Children and Parents
This Collection of Original Short Stories for Children and Parents will provide hours of reading pleasure. All the Positive Stories for children feature animals, history, Native American legends, the circus, a zoo, and a snipe hunting tale. The stories for Parents explain how the power of the mind can move mountains, plus several humorous accounts, one about the end of WW II through the eyes of a child, and one about love in Silver Dollar City.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Original Short Story Collection
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Notes for Parents
STORIES FOR CHILDREN
- Patriotic Pig
- Windowsill Surprise
- Circus Superstitions
- Friendship's Gifts
- John E. Wallace, St. Louis Zoo
- Look Out For Black Bears!
STORIES FOR PARENTS
- On Buying a Home
- Is There An Advisor Up There?
- Plants and TLC
- The Dart Competition
- A Leap Of Faith
- The Pinball Game Experiment
- Out of Body Experience
- Were There Any Messages?
- Blue Ribbon Pie
- The Vigil
- Love Bandit
- The Sounds of Peace
- Christmas/Hannukkah
|
NOTE TO PARENT:
I have written a variety of stories for your child; however, it is up to you to decide which ones to read to your child, according to age and maturity. You, also, have a variety of short stories from which to choose. Enjoy!
Sincerely,
author/publisher
Samples of
STORIES FOR CHILDREN
THE PATRIOTIC PIG
by Joan Bramsch
When Americans came to the defense of their country during World War II, so did King Neptune, a plump pugnacious porker.
King Neptune was the much-loved mascot of the Navy. He brought a smile to everyone who saw him in his sparkling white sailor cap ("bucket" hat), collar (tallywhacker) and tie. He also brought a huge amount of money into the United States Treasury.
How did he do it?
He was sold for thousands of dollars, again and again, in mock auctions around the country. The money really bought War Bonds. Today we call them Savings Bonds or E Bonds. Altogether, he helped raise more than $19 million for America.
Legend says he was worth his weight in gold.
King Neptune died in 1950. He had a hero's burial in Vienna, Illinois. This is how his tombstone reads:
"KING NEPTUNE, 1941-1950. Buried here, King Neptune, famous navy mascot pig. Auctioned for $19,000,000 in War Bonds, 1942-46, to help make a free world."
What a hero! Surely, King Neptune's Mother was justifiably proud of her distinguished piglet.
WINDOWSILL SURPRISE
by Joan Bramsch
Early Saturday morning Mother peeked into Peggy's room. "Time to get up," she said. "You'll want to do your chores before ball practice."
"Sure, Mom," mumbled Peggy as she burrowed under the covers. "I'm coming."
"Pegatha?" Mother tickled her daughter's toes. "Get up."
Peggy giggled and bounced out of bed. Her red curls bounced, too. "I'm up."
"Happy Spring!" said Mother.
"It is?"
"Yes," she replied at the door. "Open your window and let it in."
"Okay, Mom. Happy Spring!"
Peggy dressed in a hurry. She made her bed in a hurry. She brushed her teeth in a hurry. But when she rushed toward the stairs she remembered to open the window and hurried back into her room.
That was when she came to a screeching halt.
Like a Swinging Statue player Peggy froze to stare at visitors on the windowsill. Two identical blue-eyed, pale gray birds gazed back at her through the pane.
One gray bird pranced about, cooing. Over in the corner, the other bird dropped a twig onto three others.
"They're building a nest," whispered Peggy. Her brown eyes grew as round as the birds' blue ones. "I can't disturb them."
Quietly she knelt to watch. One bird flew away while the other pecked at the pile. When the first bird returned it added a fifth twig to the stack. Peggy thought they were slow workers. And not very neat.
"I wish I could tell which was the female and which the male," said Peggy.
"You have some new neighbors, I see," said Mother. She had come to make sure Peggy was up and moving. "Mourning doves."
Peggy smiled at the pair. "They're here at the right time."
"Not morning doves, honey," said Mother with a smile. "Mourning." She spelled the name. "It means to be sad."
Peggy peered through the glass. "They don't look sad to me."
"I think they get their name because of their soft cooing song."
"It does sound kind of sad." Peggy suddenly giggled. "They could use building lessons from Grandpa."
"Mourning doves have a reputation for building flimsy nests," replied Mother. "It's good they found your windowsill."
"Otherwise, the wind might blow it away," said Peggy. She tipped her head to one side. "Then would they build another?"
"I've read that a pair might build as many as five nests in one season," replied Mother.
"They don't give up, do they?"
"Not anymore than you did when you decided to make the ball team," said Mother. "But it's the birds' instinct to mate, build nests and lay eggs."
"So they won't become...extinct."
Mother nodded and smiled. "Your vocabulary is growing."
"I'm going to keep a record on the doves."
Peggy got a notebook from her desk drawer. On the cover she wrote: Mourning Doves.
"Good idea," said Mother. "You can track their daily activities. Like ornithologists do."
"Ornith-who?"
Mother laughed when Peggy made a weird face. "Or-ni-thol-o-gist. One who studies birds."
"Maybe I'll be one."
"Maybe," said Mother. "Now we'll let them do their work so--"
"We can do ours. Right, Mom?"
"Right."
Each day Peggy noted the doves' progress. It took them four days to build their flimsy nest.
"At least I think they're finished."
For the next three days the pair cuddled in their nest. Peggy feared they would tumble to the ground. She wrote: "Doves cooing and staying in their seventeen-stick nest." She'd counted!
On the seventh morning Peggy made a discovery. "Eggs! Two white eggs."
One dove inspected the eggs while the other strutted around, cooing proudly. Then Peggy got another surprise.
The first dove climbed onto the eggs in the nest, and the other dove flew away! Peggy waited and waited. She took the time to look up Mourning Doves in her Encyclopedia.
That was when she got a third surprise. It was the female dove who'd flown away while the male dove sat docilely on the nest. When the female didn't return, Peggy told her mother.
"The daddy dove is egg-sitting," she said. "The mama flew away an hour ago. That's not right, is it?"
Mother hugged Peggy. "Maybe it's right for doves."
"Instinct?"
Mother nodded.
"I've got to record this," said Peggy, and she ran back to her room for her book.
The male dove never left the nest. The female never even visited. Peggy was puzzled. This behavior wasn't like human families that she knew. Then she remembered that Black Widow spider families weren't like human families either.
"The female eats the male after they mate. Yuk!"
During the evening of Day Twelve Peggy went to investigate a loud cooing sound she heard from her room. The sitting dove sat figeting on the nest, making a most distressing sound. Then Peggy discovered why the bird was so nervous. The neighbor's cat sat on a nearby limb in the tree outside Peggy's bedroom window.
"Oh, no!" cried Peggy. "Samantha is stalking the dove."
What could she do to help? Peggy wondered. Should she run outside and give the tree a hard shake? Should she yell at the cat to go home? Maybe if she threw something at her she'd leave. A stone!
"But it would have to be a small stone so Samantha wouldn't get hurt if I did hit her."
Just then the female dove appeared as if by magic. She dove at the cat, swooping down, trying to take her attention off the nest on the windowsill. She accomplished her aim because the cat skee-daddled down the tree limb, streaked across the lawn and through the hedge, back to her house.
"And stay there," ordered Peggy as she shook her finger at the retreating cat's back. "This nest is off-limits to you."
On the fourteenth day, one egg hatched. Peggy saw it happen.
First, the egg cracked while the adult dove only watched and did not help. Tiny chips of shell fell away until, finally, the baby dove, all wet and weak, pecked free.
"It's born!" exclaimed Peggy to her mother who had joined the vigil. "No, I mean, it's hatched."
The male covered the other egg and the baby, called a squab, with his body. But not before Peggy saw that the baby's eyes were closed tight.
"Just like a puppy's," she noted in her journal.
When Peggy awoke next morning, she checked on the baby and discovered two! She made another entry in her journal: "Both babies seem okay, but I am worried. The daddy steps on them. How can they breathe when he plops down? I know he keeps them warm because they have no feathers but he might squash them."
On Day Four after the eggs hatched, the babys' eyes opened. Big round, bright blue eyes. Just like their parents' eyes.
On Day Five the female returned.
"She's late," Peggy told her mother. "All the work is done."
Mother sighed as she ironed her daughter's softball uniform. "Are you sure?"
Peggy soon realized she was mistaken. What a job! It took both parents to keep the babies fed, and to keep them from falling off the window ledge.
Peggy wrote in her book: "The babies are always hopping and always hungry. But what do they eat?"
She looked it up in her encyclopedia. The squabs were fed regurgitated food called pigeon milk. Soon the babies doubled in size and grew feathers.
"Mother, I can almost watch them grow," she said at the dinner table that evening.
"All babies seem to do that," replied Mother. "You were such a good eater that your birth weight doubled in only three months."
"Wow!," Peggy exclaimed. "From eight pounds to sixteen pounds. That's fast."
"Yes, it is," said Mother with a smile as she passed Peggy the green beans.
On Day Ten after the eggs hatched, the parents encouraged their big babies to try their wings. On Day Twelve, all four Mourning Doves flew away.
Peggy kept watch for two days before she decided they would not return. Then she wrote the last entry into her Ornithological Journal.
"The Mourning Dove family flew away at ten a.m., May 24, 1999. I will miss them, my Windowsill Surprise."
Then Peggy closed her notebook and opened her bedroom window to let Spring inside. Two weeks late.
Purchase
A Collection of Original Short Stories
for Children and Parents
- by Joan Bramsch
An ebook in pdf format to be printed
out or read on your computer.
$7.95 US
Goods and services provided by JB Information Station (MO, ).
Sold by 2CheckOut.com Inc. (Ohio, USA).
Or you can READ IT FOR FREE.
"A Collection of Original Short Stories
for Children and Parents" has been selected for the US Library eBook project. The complete eBook (PDF format) can be 'borrowed' and read for free, by requesting a copy from your local library and quoting ISBN 0-934334-02-1 from the Follett TitleTales/TitleWave catalog (US libraries only).
|
|