English

Princess of Fire

Basic Elements

Moral of the story	Setting	Characters
True love is the most powerful way to change the world from the inside, starting with ourselves.	A far away kingdom	A Princess and a young man

There was once and incredibly rich, beautiful, and wise Princess. Tired of false suitors who were only interested in her money, she announced that she would only marry whoever managed to present her with the most valuable, tender, and sincere gift of all.

The palace filled up with flowers and gifts of every kind, letters describing undying love, and love-struck poems. Among all these wonderful gifts, she found a pebble, a simple dirty pebble. Intrigued, she demanded to see whoever it was who had offered this gift.

Despite her curiosity, she pretended to be highly offended by the gift when the young man was brought before her. He explained it to her like this,
"Dear Princess, this pebble represents the most valuable thing one can give - it is my heart. It is also sincere, because it is not yet yours, and it is as hard as a stone. Only when it fills with love will it soften and be more tender than any other."

The young man quietly left, leaving the Princess surprised and captivated. She fell so in love that she took the little pebble with her wherever she went, and for months she regaled the young man with gifts and attention.

But his heart remained as hard as the stone in her hands. Losing hope, she ended up throwing the pebble into a fire. In the heat of the fire, the sand crumbled from around it, and from out of that rough stone a beautiful golden figure emerged.

With this, the Princess understood that she herself would have to be like the fire, and go about separating what is useless from what is truly important.

During the following months she set about changing the kingdom, and devoted her life, her wisdom, and her riches to separating what is truly valuable from what is unimportant. She gave up the luxury, the jewels, the excess; and it meant that everyone in the kingdom now had food to eat and books to read.

So many people came away from their interaction with the Princess enchanted by her character and her charisma. Her mere presence transmitted such human warmth that they started to call her 'The Princess of Fire'.

And as with the pebble, the fire of her presence melted the hardness of the young man's heart. And just as he had promised, he became so tender and considerate that he made the Princess happy till the end of her days. 

Author.. Pedro Pablo Sacristán




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Basic Elements

Moral of the story

A story to help children discover the joys of reading, and the torrent of experience and imagination it releases

Setting

A normal haouse

Characters

A boy, his father, and a book

Martin was now so old that for his birthday that year his father gave him a book without any pictures in it! Martin's father noticed his disappointment, and told him,
"Son, this isn't just any old book, it's a magic book. But to discover its magic you'll have to read it."

Well, that was better; Martin liked everything to do with magic. He started reading it, even though he wasn't overly enthusiastic. The next morning, his father asked him,
"Have you found the magic key?"

So... there was a key to find! Martin ran off and flicked through the book, but there was no sign of the key. He came back, very annoyed, but his father warned him,
"You won't find it like that. You have to read the book."

Martin didn't have much patience, and he stopped reading the book, thinking his father was trying to trick him into reading a bit more, just as Martin's teacher had suggested to his dad. A little later, his sister, Angela, who was just a bit younger than him, asked him for the book so she could try reading it. After several days of trying to read it without great success, she appeared in the lounge, happily screaming,

"I've found it! I've found the key of the magic book!" And she would not stop talking about all the worlds and places she had visited using that magic key.

All the talk ended up convincing Martin to resume reading the book. At first it was a pain; there wasn't even one miserable picture in the thing. But, gradually, the story started springing to life, and Martin got interested in the adventurous Prince's life. Then, suddenly, he was there.
The book itself was the key!

It was true that whenever he opened it, he felt transported to its valleys and seas, and he lived the adventures of its pirates, Princes, and wizards, as though they were himself. And his head and his dreams filled with adventures whenever they got a chance.

However, the best thing about that story was that from then on, in every new book, he saw a new key to a thousand worlds and adventures. Martin never stopped travelling and travelling on those letters and words.
Author.. Pedro Pablo Sacristán

• En el siguiente enlace encontraras el credo en Ingles para copiarlo en tu cuaderno y en clase iniciar la traduccion. 

http://www.yoyita.com/credo.htm 

The Red Moon

Educational Value

Care for environment

 

 

 

Basic Elements

Moral of the story

If we don’t actively care for the environment, it could seriously deteriorate

Setting

A dirty planet and the moon

Characters

A boy and a flower

There was once a little grey planet that was very sad. The people living there hadn't looked after it, despite them having all the inventions and space ships you could ever need. They had contaminated the whole countryside so much with rubbish and pollution that there were no plants or animals left.

One day, a little boy was walking on the planet, when he passed a cave and noticed a small red flower inside. The flower was very sick - almost dying - so the boy carefully dug up the flower, with roots, soil and everything.

Then, he started looking for a place where he could look after it. He searched all over the planet, but everywhere was so contaminated that there was no place the flower could possibly live in. Then he looked up at the sky and noticed the moon. It seemed to the boy that maybe the plant could survive there.

So the little boy put on his astronaut suit, and climbed into a space ship. He put the little red flower in the back, and off they went to the moon.

Far away from all that pollution - and with the boy visiting it every day to tend it - the flower started to grow. The flower was so well cared for, that it had soon germinated, giving birth to others, and these other flowers spread onto other flowers. Before long, the whole moon was completely covered with flowers.

That's why, whenever the little boy's flowers open up, for a few minutes the moon takes on a soft red sheen, like a warning light. Maybe it's telling us that if you don't look after your planet, a day will come when flowers will only be able to grow on the moon.
Author.. Pedro Pablo Sacristán

 

 

The Magic Key

Educational Value

Passion for reading and imagination

 

 

Art Town

Educational Value

Optimism and being positive

Basic Elements

Moral of the story

idea for everyone, to help see the positive aspect in all experiences

Setting

A boy's house

Characters

A boy and his teacher

Mickey was a nice, cheerful, optimistic boy. No one could remember ever having seen him angry; he didn't mind whatever people said to him. He seemed incapable of insulting anyone. Even his teachers admired his good disposition, which was so unusual that a rumour was going round that Mickey´s goodness must be due to some special secret. The fact that there was a supposed secret meant that no one could think about anything else. They interrogated Mickey so much that, one afternoon, he invited his favourite teacher, Mr. Anthony, to tea. When they had finished, Mickey showed Mr. Anthony around the house. When Mickey opened his bedroom door, the teacher froze, and a big smile spread across his face.

The huge far wall was a unique collage of thousands of colours and shapes! It was the loveliest decoration Mr. Anthony had ever seen.

"Some people at school think I never think badly of anyone," Mickey started to explain, "and that nothing at all bothers me, and that I never want to insult anyone, but that's not true at all. I'm just like anyone else. I used to get angrier than all the other kids. But years ago, with the help of my parents, I started a small collage. I could use any kind of material and colour for it. With every little piece I stuck on I added some bad thought or act.”

It was true. The teacher looked closely at the wall. In each one of the small pieces he could read, in tiny letters, 'fool', 'idiot', 'pain', 'bore', and a thousand other negative things.

"This is how I started turning all my bad times into an opportunity to add to my collage. Now I like the collage so much that, each time someone makes me angry, I couldn't be happier. They've given me a new piece for my work of art."

That day they discussed many things, but what the teacher never forgot was how an ordinary boy had shown him that the secret to having a cheerful and optimistic character is to convert the bad times into a chance to smile.

Without telling anyone, on that very day, Mr. Anthony began his own collage. He would recommend it so often to his students that, years later, they called that neighbourhood 'Art Town'. Each house contained its own magnificent works of art, made by those cheerful and optimistic children.

Educational Value

Communication. Do not judge others's intentions.

 

Basic Elements

Moral of the story

We should not guess or imagine the intentions of others. Talking is how we come to understand others, and clear up a great many problems

Setting

Two neighbours’ houses

Characters

Two neighbours

There was once a man who went out to look for a job. As he was passing his neighbour's house, an important piece of paper fell out of the man's pocket.

His neighbour happened to be looking out the window. He saw the piece of paper fall, and he thought: "What a disgrace! That guy deliberately let that fall out of his pocket. He's trying to mess up the front of my house, and he's being sneaky about it, too!"

But instead of going out and saying something, the neighbour planned his revenge.

That night, he took his waste-paper basket and went to the man's house. The first man also happened to be looking out the window, and saw what happened. Later, when he was picking up the papers which had been dumped on his porch, he found the important piece of paper that he had lost. It was torn into dozens of pieces. He thought that his neighbour had not only picked his pocket, but had had the cheek to mess up his doorway with rubbish.

He didn't want to say anything. Instead, he started plotting his revenge. That night he phoned a farmer to make an order of ten pigs and a hundred ducks. He asked that they be delivered to his neighbour's house.

Of course, the next day, his neighbour had quite a bit of trouble trying to rid himself of so many animals and their accompanying pong.

Sure that this had been a dastardly trick pulled by his neighbour, as soon as the second man had gotten rid of the pigs and ducks, he again started planning his revenge.

And so it went on.

They continued trying to get their own back on each other, and each time their acts of revenge got bigger and more ridiculous. The dropping of that single piece of paper ended up invoking a rock band, a fire siren, the driving of a lorry into a garden fence, the throwing of a hail of stones at windows, the firing of a canon, and finally the dropping of a bomb which destroyed both men's houses.

Both ended up in a hospital, and had to spend quite some time sharing a room there. At first they refused to speak to each other, but, one day, tired of the silence, they got to talking. As time passed, they became friends, until one day they finally dared discuss the piece of paper incident. They realised that it had all been a misunderstanding, and that if they had talked to each other on the first occasion - instead of jumping to conclusions about bad intentions - then none of this would have happened. Even better, they would still have their houses.

However, in the end, the fact that they were talking, and had become friends, helped them greatly to recover from their wounds, and to work together to rebuild their houses.

Author.. Pedro Pablo Sacristán

The Bad Neighbours