Summers Fly, Winters . . . Looking ahead to 2023

Charles Schulz had a book titled Summers Fly, Winters Walk, but in Michigan they sometimes slog and creep.  Is it any wonder that children's librarians are already looking ahead to plans for Summer Reading in 2023?  Many libraries, including here in Michigan, use the Collaborative Summer Library Program,  which next year has the theme of "All Together Now" focusing on Kindness, Friendship, and Unity.  If that focus can lead young readers to create a kinder, unified world and foster friendship, it's a wonderful goal.

All those years of being a children's librarian has me already thinking ahead, but also thinking back five years ago to 2017.  At that time I brought out my cheerleading puppet, Priscilla Gorilla in a program when the theme was Build a Better World.  I'm confident she can lead cheers related to Kindness, Friendship and Unity.  What I'm not certain about is if the rest of that program takes the right positive spin.  That program was particularly aimed at fighting bullying.  Schools at the time were seeking programs on that topic. In addition to Priscilla I used building blocks to involve audience members in choosing the topics and stories they chose.

You can't see the titles of those stories here, but if you look at the long list of stories on the block labeled "Courage" and the few listed on "Patience" you can see the way the program was structured. 

In case it's hard to read those topics or blocks: I looked at Creative Thinking; Courage; Conflict Resolution; Respect; Anger Management; Persistence; Forgiveness; Honesty; Cooperation; Patience; and Responsibility.  Some stories fit more than one topic.  

I've found the following story in many locations on the internet, but am unable to track it down to its source.  It certainly fits Friendship and Kindness.  I originally applied it to Anger Management and Respect.

Writing on sand or rock Two friends were walking through the desert. At a specific point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one, who got slapped, was hurt, but without anything to say, he wrote in the sand: "TODAY, MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE." They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who got slapped and hurt started drowning, and the other friend saved him. When he recovered from the fright, he wrote on a stone: "TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE." The friend who saved and slapped his best friend, asked him, "Why, after I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now you write on a stone?" The other friend, smiling, replied: "When a friend hurts us, we should write it down in the sand, where the winds of forgiveness get in charge of erasing it away, and when something great happens, we should engrave it in the stone of the memory of the heart, where no wind can erase it" (Anger Management, Respect)

What do you think about those Building Blocks as they apply to Kindness, Friendship, and Unity?  Is it too negative?  If I can include some or all of those original Building Blocks, I presume I should add those three topics of Kindness, Friendship, and Unity as the foundation.  Should I remove any?  

By the way, if it helps, here are the three blogs about the program I made back in 2017:

1. Initial thoughts on January 28
   
2. June 17 with a chant that can be modified, a story from fellow storyteller, Doug Lipman, also a "Zen story" and 2 others briefly mentioned or linked
   
3.  Drop down past the 2019 article (also about Summer Reading, but an astronomical theme) to the October 14 article with several cheers which also could be modified.

Your reactions to this would be greatly appreciated.   (You may email me -- it's at the top of this blog, or on my Facebook page, or here.)

Lang - The War of the Wolf and the Fox - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Wish the reality of war among people was as easily resolved as this story from Andrew Lang in his Green Fairy Book.  First let's catch the story and then a bit of discussion follows.

THE WAR OF THE WOLF AND THE FOX

There was once upon a time a man and his wife who had an old cat and an old dog. One day the man, whose name was Simon, said to his wife, whose name was Susan, 'Why should we keep our old cat any longer? She never catches any mice now-a-days, and is so useless that I have made up my mind to drown her.'

But his wife replied, 'Don't do that, for I'm sure she could still catch mice.'

'Rubbish,' said Simon. 'The mice might dance on her and she would never catch one. I've quite made up my mind that the next time I see her, I shall put her in the water.'

Susan was very unhappy when she heard this, and so was the cat, who had been listening to the conversation behind the stove. When Simon went off to his work, the poor cat miawed so pitifully, and looked up so pathetically into Susan's face, that the woman quickly opened the door and said, 'Fly for your life, my poor little beast, and get well away from here before your master returns.'

The cat took her advice, and ran as quickly as her poor old legs would carry her into the wood, and when Simon came home, his wife told him that the cat had vanished.

'So much the better for her,' said Simon. 'And now we have got rid of her, we must consider what we are to do with the old dog. He is quite deaf and blind, and invariably barks when there is no need, and makes no sound when there is. I think the best thing I can do with him is to hang him.'

But soft-hearted Susan replied, 'Please don't do so; he's surely not so useless as all that.'

'Don't be foolish,' said her husband. 'The courtyard might be full of thieves and he'd never discover it. No, the first time I see him, it's all up with him, I can tell you.'

Susan was very unhappy at his words, and so was the dog, who was lying in the corner of the room and had heard everything. As soon as Simon had gone to his work, he stood up and howled so touchingly that Susan quickly opened the door, and said 'Fly for your life, poor beast, before your master gets home.' And the dog ran into the wood with his tail between his legs.

When her husband returned, his wife told him that the dog had disappeared.

'That's lucky for him,' said Simon, but Susan sighed, for she had been very fond of the poor creature.

Now it happened that the cat and dog met each other on their travels, and though they had not been the best of friends at home, they were quite glad to meet among strangers. They sat down under a holly tree and both poured forth their woes.

Presently a fox passed by, and seeing the pair sitting together in a disconsolate fashion, he asked them why they sat there, and what they were grumbling about.

The cat replied, 'I have caught many a mouse in my day, but now that I am old and past work, my master wants to drown me.'

And the dog said, 'Many a night have I watched and guarded my master's house, and now that I am old and deaf, he wants to hang me.'

The fox answered, 'That's the way of the world. But I'll help you to get back into your master's favour, only you must first help me in my own troubles.'

They promised to do their best, and the fox continued, 'The wolf has declared war against me, and is at this moment marching to meet me in company with the bear and the wild boar, and to-morrow there will be a fierce battle between us.'

'All right,' said the dog and the cat, 'we will stand by you, and if we are killed, it is at any rate better to die on the field of battle than to perish ignobly at home,' and they shook paws and concluded the bargain. The fox sent word to the wolf to meet him at a certain place, and the three set forth to encounter him and his friends.

The wolf, the bear, and the wild boar arrived on the spot first, and when they had waited some time for the fox, the dog, and the cat, the bear said, 'I'll climb up into the oak tree, and look if I can see them coming.'

The first time he looked round he said, 'I can see nothing,' and the second time he looked round he said, 'I can still see nothing.' But the third time he said, 'I see a mighty army in the distance, and one of the warriors has the biggest lance you ever saw!'

This was the cat, who was marching along with her tail erect.

And so they laughed and jeered, and it was so hot that the bear said, 'The enemy won't be here at this rate for many hours to come, so I'll just curl myself up in the fork of the tree and have a little sleep.'

And the wolf lay down under the oak, and the wild boar buried himself in some straw, so that nothing was seen of him but one ear.

And while they were lying there, the fox, the cat and the dog arrived. When the cat saw the wild boar's ear, she pounced upon it, thinking it was a mouse in the straw.

The wild boar got up in a dreadful fright, gave one loud grunt and disappeared into the wood. But the cat was even more startled than the boar, and, spitting with terror, she scrambled up into the fork of the tree, and as it happened right into the bear's face. Now it was the bear's turn to be alarmed, and with a mighty growl he jumped down from the oak and fell right on the top of the wolf and killed him as dead as a stone.

illustration by H. J. Ford

On their way home from the war the fox caught a score of mice, and when they reached Simon's cottage he put them all on the stove and said to the cat, 'Now go and fetch one mouse after the other, and lay them down before your master.'

'All right,' said the cat, and did exactly as the fox told her.

When Susan saw this she said to her husband, 'Just look, here is our old cat back again, and see what a lot of mice she has caught.'

'Wonders will never cease,' cried Simon. 'I certainly never thought the old cat would ever catch another mouse.'

But Susan answered, 'There, you see, I always said our cat was a most excellent creature—but you men always think you know best.'

In the meantime the fox said to the dog, 'Our friend Simon has just killed a pig; when it gets a little darker, you must go into the courtyard and bark with all your might.'

'All right,' said the dog, and as soon as it grew dusk he began to bark loudly.

Susan, who heard him first, said to her husband, 'Our dog must have come back, for I hear him barking lustily. Do go out and see what's the matter; perhaps thieves may be stealing our sausages.'

But Simon answered, 'The foolish brute is as deaf as a post and is always barking at nothing,' and he refused to get up.

The next morning Susan got up early to go to church at the neighbouring town, and she thought she would take some sausages to her aunt who lived there. But when she went to her larder, she found all the sausages gone, and a great hole in the floor. She called out to her husband, 'I was perfectly right. Thieves have been here last night, and they have not left a single sausage. Oh! if you had only got up when I asked you to!'

Then Simon scratched his head and said, 'I can't understand it at all. I certainly never believed the old dog was so quick at hearing.'

But Susan replied, 'I always told you our old dog was the best dog in the world—but as usual you thought you knew so much better. Men are the same all the world over.'

And the fox scored a point too, for he had carried away the sausages himself!

******

Yes, modern warfare is way beyond this story.  It begins like many other tales in a wish to eliminate unproductive animals.  Frankly that happens in agriculture and even zoos.  There's also a bit of sly showing this woman in the story knowing better than the man.  (Guess who probably told this story through the centuries?)  The clumsiness of the opponents of the fox, dog, and cat are handled with a bit of slapstick humor, but what is the final effect upon the listener?  Does the story offer a parallel to our world?  As I said in the opening, " Wish the reality of war among people was as easily resolved as this story."  Might it encourage people, however, fighting against seemingly overwhelming odds?  

As we look at the news, we know the conflicts aren't settled as easily.  The anthology came out in 1906, before even "The War to End All Wars" as the third in the series of fairy books with a color in the title.  Lang, at the time, believed it would be the last.  Fortunately he didn't stop there.  What kept them coming?   Stories like this create a background of hope.  Also it is worth looking for ways even powerful bullies can be defeated. 

 ********************

Building a Better World Is Still Needed

Evil will always find a way, but now is the time to train our children to Build a Better World.  Character education needs to happen if we want to grow better adults.

Priscilla Gorilla helped lead cheers about reading and more this past summer when Build a Better World was the summer reading program theme in libraries across the country.  There's a reason I think those cheers are still important. It's called an "earworm."

Sounds bad, but it doesn't need to be.  You've had earworms before when a song gets in your head and refuses to leave.  Cheerleading, like songs, can stick with you, popping out when needed or even unexpectedly.  A perfect example of that is an incorrect saying: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.  O.k. we know that's not true or verbal bullying wouldn't be a problem. 

Here's a picture of the building blocks from which audiences can choose to hear stories and cheers.

Not everyone can experience those stories, but these two past blog articles from 2017, June 17 and January 28, tell a lot about the program including several of the stories. Topics are Anger Management, Conflict Resolution, Cooperation, Courage, Creative Thinking, Forgiveness, Honesty, Patience, Persistence, Respect, and Responsibility.  Only one cheer, the one for Anger Management, has been posted and I'll repeat it here and the actions are given in parenthese.  Then come the others to use as your own resource.
Hey you angry folk
Come and clap your hands (clap, clap)
Stomp your feet (stomp, stomp)
You've got the beat (clap, clap)
Feel the groove (clap, clap)
Start to move (stomp, stomp)
Now have no fear / Take it in one ear
Just wait and send it out
Yes, twice just shout it out:
IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER!
IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER! 

F-R-I-E-N-D
F-R-I-E-N-D
To have a friend
Be a friend
Yes, indeed
F-R-I-E-N-D
F-R-I-E-N-D

I forgive you.
It doesn't change the past,
but it may change the future.

Build it up
BUILD IT UP
Let's get to it.
BUILD IT UP
You can do it --
BUILD A BETTER WORLD

(This next one fits several topics, just fill in the blank line with the negative action for the first and the positive for the second.)
Hey hey, ho ho
____________
has got to go!
Hey hey, ho ho
____________
is here to stay!

The final cheer uses part of a song's lyrics, but it's so appropriate for character education.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Of course repetition is so important.  When used in schools, it's a vital resource for teachers to use again and again.

I hope schools can bring this program to their schools as they have daily exposure to the problems and the daily opportunity to cope with it.  The wisdom of the book of Proverbs 22:6 is the earworm coming to me as I close this: Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Some Stories to Build a Better World

Why do I believe stories can make a difference?  Like music, a story has the ability to get inside a listener and play over and over.  I think back to a story I heard in grade school about gossip or misinformation being like feathers scattered, never to be retrieved.  Similarly I want to change the way young people handle disagreements and bullying.

Whether at​ a political l​ocation or a playground, conflict resolution and anger management are needed.  View the news to see what I mean.  Many libraries this summer use the Summer Reading theme of "Build a Better World."  It's a topic applied in many ways, but needs to include character education.  I believe it also should be brought to schools, too.  We must build that better world by reaching as young as possible in schools, libraries, or wherever children are.

A story may fit more than one topic. Beyond Anger Management and Conflict Resolution I add Cooperation, Courage, Creative Thinking, Forgiveness, Honesty, Patience, Persistence, Respect, and Responsibility.  Notice my puppet sidekick, Priscilla Gorilla, in her cheer leading outfit.  Just as stories or music can stay with us a long time, so can cheers.  I bet you remember the old saying: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Similarly cheers can be what is called an Earworm, an important enough topic to generate a Wikipedia article.  I'll give a sample cheer later that may contain an earworm.

I won't give all of the stories I use -- the list is long and I enjoy being able to pick stories suiting my audience.  Here the need is for stories I can either link or reprint.  Today I will only give a few stories helping Anger Management or Conflict Resolution. 

 
Because of copyright, I can't print here the African story, "A Blind Man Catches a Bird", from Alexander McCall Smith in his anthology, The Girl Who Married a Lion.  He has delighted me with his novels set in Botswana about Mma Ramotswe and The Number One Ladies Detective Agency, but that link should take you to PDF of a teacher's unit reprinting and using the story for her class of English language learners.



Fellow storyteller, Doug Lipman, in addition to other offerings, hosts the Hasidic Stories Home Page.  Because "Can You See the Turning" is an original copyrighted story by Doug, as opposed to many of the traditional tales there, I called and asked if I can reproduce it here.  As I expected, he graciously agreed.

Sometimes on the internet you can't be sure if something truly is a traditional story or not.  A site called Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors gives the story "The Gift of Insults" complete with reactions to it.  If I could choose only one story, this is the most important.  My only hesitation with printing it here is I also see it attributed to Brazilian novelist, Paulo Coelho, best known for The Alchemist.  I believe he is the author and should have been credited there even though his own posting of the story does end with this statement: Welcome to Share with Friends – Free Texts for a Free Internet.  Generosity should still include known origin.  Because I consider the story so important I'm not going to risk your clicking on a link being too difficult.  Here it is.

Near Tokyo lived a great Samurai warrior, now old, who decided to teach Zen Buddhism to young people. In spite of his age, the legend was that he could defeat any adversary.
One afternoon, a warrior – known for his complete lack of scruples – arrived there. He was famous for using techniques of provocation: he waited until his adversary made the first move and, being gifted with an enviable intelligence in order to repair any mistakes made, he counterattacked with fulminating speed.
The young and impatient warrior had never lost a fight. Hearing of the Samurai’s reputation, he had come to defeat him, and increase his fame.
All the students were against the idea, but the old man accepted the challenge.
All gathered on the town square, and the young man started insulting the old master. He threw a few rocks in his direction, spat in his face, shouted every insult under the sun – he even insulted his ancestors. For hours, he did everything to provoke him, but the old man remained impassive. At the end of the afternoon, by now feeling exhausted and humiliated, the impetuous warrior left.
Disappointed by the fact that the master had received so many insults and provocations, the students asked:
– How could you bear such indignity? Why didn’t you use your sword, even knowing you might lose the fight, instead of displaying your cowardice in front of us all?
– If someone comes to you with a gift, and you do not accept it, who does the gift belong to? – asked the Samurai.
– He who tried to deliver it – replied one of his disciples.
– The same goes for envy, anger and insults – said the master. – When they are not accepted, they continue to belong to the one who carried them.

That's only a third of my Conflict Resolution stories.  Another story that only fits Anger will be next week in the Keeping the Public in Public Domain series.  It's a perfect story about the need to take a few moments before reacting.  Sometimes I like to joke and say "The most frequent exercise I get is jumping to conclusions."  This is a longer cheer, so if you remembered it all, there would certainly be a few moments before reacting, but the "earworm" is the final part of the cheer which should be shouted twice.  (Actions are given in parentheses.)

Hey you angry folk
Come and clap your hands (clap, clap)
Stomp your feet (stomp, stomp)
You've got the beat (clap, clap)
Feel the groove (clap, clap)
Start to move (stomp, stomp)
Now have no fear / Take it in one ear
Just wait and send it out
Yes, twice just shout it out:
IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER!
IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER!


An Australian storyteller's friends worried when she moved to the U.S. for a while.  Their perception of how violent it is may not fit the average American's daily life, but increasingly the world is becoming dangerous in both personal and global ways.

I've seen the U.S. political temperature heat up, with the need for compromise and conflict resolution disappearing first with the "Tea Party" and now "The Resistance."  When politicians are criticized for failing to accomplish anything, such knee-jerk opposition plays a role.  I guess you could say it's taking the wait before reacting to extremes.  It also seems to be making it impossible for people to get along.  My father was a business man and always said there were two things you should never discuss...politics and religion.  I might occasionally find ways my beliefs will be discussed, but I hope it doesn't get to the point of hatred.

Am I perfect enough to never get angry? On a more global scale, will stories stop ISIS or someone in need of mental health intervention?  DUNBERIDICULOUS! but maybe we can slow down and think before acting.

We need to do what we can to Build a Better World.