It's Not about the Crumbs! Read online

  Text copyright © 2010 by Veronika Martenova Charles

  Illustrations copyright © 2010 by David Parkins

  Published in Canada by Tundra Books,

  75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9

  Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,

  P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938095

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher–or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency–is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Charles, Veronika Martenova

  It’s not about the crumbs! / Veronika Martenova

  Charles; illustrated by David Parkins.

  (Easy-to-read wonder tales)

  eISBN: 978-1-77049-216-5

  1. Fairy tales. 2. Children’s stories, Canadian (English).

  I. Parkins, David II. Title. III. Series: Charles, Veronika

  Martenova. Easy-to-read wonder tales.

  PS8555.H422421872 2010 jC813′.54 C2009-905858-8

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Popcorn Part 1

  The Children in the Woods

  (Hansel and Gretel from Europe)

  Zahra and Binti

  (Hansel and Gretel from Africa)

  The Ogre

  (Hansel and Gretel from Japan)

  Popcorn Part 2

  About the Stories

  POPCORN PART 1

  On Saturday, Jake’s mother said,

  “We’re going to visit Uncle Mike

  at his new house.

  I have to help him unpack.”

  “Can Lily and Ben come?”

  asked Jake.

  “Okay,” Jake’s mom replied.

  “There is a park near the house

  where you can play.”

  “How do we get to the park?”

  asked Jake, when they arrived.

  “It’s easy,” said Uncle Mike.

  “Go left at the end of the street,

  walk two blocks, and turn right.”

  Jake grabbed a bag of popcorn,

  then he, Lily, and Ben took off.

  When they turned the corner,

  Jake opened the bag,

  and began to drop popcorn

  on the ground.

  “What are you doing?” asked Lily.

  “I’m leaving a trail so we can

  find the way back,” said Jake.

  “I get it,” said Ben,

  “like in Hansel and Gretel.”

  “But didn’t they use crumbs?”

  asked Lily.

  “In the story I know,” said Jake,

  they used corn to mark the trail.”

  Jake, Lily, and Ben found the park

  and sat down on the grass.

  “Tell us that story,” said Ben.

  “Okay,” said Jake.

  THE CHILDREN IN THE WOODS

  (Hansel and Gretel from Europe)

  There was a man and woman

  who had two children

  called Marek and Jana.

  One night, the woman

  told her husband,

  “There is nothing left to eat.

  I can no longer feed our children.

  Tomorrow you must take them

  and lose them in the woods.

  Surely someone will find them

  and take care of them.”

  Marek was not asleep.

  He heard everything

  and saw his mother crying.

  In the morning, the father said,

  “Get ready children, we are going

  to gather some firewood.”

  Before they left, Marek found

  a few dry corncobs in the house

  and hid them under his shirt.

  On the way through the woods,

  Marek began to drop the corn.

  Deep in the forest,

  the father said, “Wait here.

  I will look for wood nearby.”

  And he went away.

  Marek and Jana waited for hours.

  “I don’t think Father is coming,”

  Marek said to his sister.

  “But don’t worry. I can find

  our way back home.”

  Marek tried to follow his trail,

  but birds had eaten the corn.

  It was getting dark. The children

  walked through the woods

  until they came to a rock cliff.

  From there, they saw a light

  on the far side of the valley.

  They headed toward the light

  and came to a small road

  that led them to a house.

  The children knocked on the door.

  An old woman opened it

  and told them to come in.

  Inside, there was a small girl,

  the same age as Marek and Jana.

  She brought dinner to the table.

  When Marek looked at his food,

  there seemed to be a finger

  sticking out of it!

  “Don’t eat it!” he warned Jana.

  The children excused themselves,

  climbed up to the attic,

  and went to sleep.

  Now, the old woman,

  who was a witch, had a plan.

  After the children left the table,

  she told Blanka, her servant girl,

  “More for the pot!

  What a good stew they will make!

  Before the sun comes up,

  wake me, and I will kill them.”

  The witch went to bed.

  But poor Blanka

  began to wonder

  just how safe she was

  from day to day.

  Could she save these children

  and save herself too?

  Maybe the magic she’d learned

  from spying on the witch

  could help them all escape.

  When the witch was sound asleep,

  Blanka climbed into the attic.

  “Wake up!” she whispered

  to Marek and Jana.

  “The witch is going to cook you.

  You must get away from here!”

  The children crept downstairs.

  Blanka spat on the door, and then

  all three children ran out.

  The noise of the door closing

  woke up the witch.

  “Is it morning yet?” she called.

  And the spit on the door answered,

  “Not yet. You can still sleep.

  I’ll make a cooking fire.”

  The witch went back to sleep,

  but in a while, she woke again.

  “Is the fire ready yet?”

  Again, the spit answered,

  “The wood was damp. Go to sleep!”

  Then, the sun came up.

  The witch jumped up and yelled,

  “You lazybones, wher
e are you?”

  This time there was no answer,

  because the sun had dried up

  the spit on the door.

  The witch saw there was no fire,

  and all the children were gone.

  She went out and sniffed around

  until she smelled which way

  they had gone.

  Then, she set off after them.

  The children reached the big cliff

  and found a cave under it

  just wide enough to crawl into.

  They slipped in there and hid.

  Soon the witch found them.

  She tried to squeeze in

  to grab them, but she couldn’t.

  Never mind, the witch thought.

  They’ll get hungry in a few days.

  She waited on the rock cliff,

  but by and by, she fell asleep.

  The children heard her snoring.

  They crept up behind the witch

  and gave her a hard push.

  The witch rolled down the cliff,

  broke her bones, and died.

  Marek and Jana found their house,

  and Blanka returned

  to her own home

  and was welcomed by her family.

  “This reminds me of another story

  about kids who are lost

  and come to the house

  of a cannibal woman,” said Lily.

  “These kids ran away from home,

  so they didn’t need corn

  to mark their way back.”

  “What happened to them?”

  asked Jake.

  “I will tell you,” said Lily.

  ZAHRA AND BINTI

  (Hansel and Gretel from Africa)

  Zahra and Binti were sisters.

  They lived with their father

  in a village on the River Nile.

  Once their father went away

  and left them with his relatives

  who were cruel and beat them.

  “We have to run away!”

  Zahra said to Binti.

  The next day, the sisters left

  and walked until evening came.

  Far off, they saw two fires,

  a big one and a little one.

  “Let’s go to the big fire,”

  said Binti.

  They came to a house in the desert.

  A gigantic woman with large teeth

  and red eyes came from inside.

  “Welcome!” she greeted the girls.

  She invited them to eat with her

  and spend the night in her house.

  After they had eaten,

  Zahra and Binti went to bed,

  but they couldn’t sleep.

  They heard the sound of metal

  scraping against a rock

  and the woman singing:

  “Rock is smooth, rock is hard,

  and it makes my dull ax sharp.”

  The sisters were frightened,

  and Binti cried out.

  “What’s the matter?”

  the woman asked.

  “We can’t sleep,” Zahra answered.

  “The camels are keeping us awake.”

  The woman left her house

  and walked to the little fire

  to talk to the camel owners.

  “You there!” she called out.

  “Move your camels out of here!”

  But as soon as the woman left,

  Zahra and Binti jumped

  out of their bed,

  put rocks under the blanket,

  and ran away from the house.

  When the woman returned,

  she picked up her ax and swung it

  at the two bumps in the bed.

  Clang, clang!

  The ax made a sound

  as it hit the rocks.

  The woman screamed in rage.

  She ran after the girls.

  Soon, Zahra and Binti saw

  a cloud of dust behind them.

  The woman was chasing them.

  The girls came to a wide river.

  A crocodile was swimming there.

  “Please crocodile,” Zahra called,

  “take us to the other side!”

  “I will eat you up!”

  the crocodile answered.

  “If you take us, I promise you

  a bigger dinner,” Zahra yelled.

  So the crocodile took them across.

  Soon, the gigantic woman arrived

  on the other riverbank.

  Zahra said to the crocodile,

  “Go back and bring our auntie.”

  The crocodile went back

  and the woman jumped on his back.

  When he was halfway across,

  Zahra shouted, “Crocodile!

  Your dinner is on your back!”

  Splash! The crocodile dove,

  turned under the water,

  and ate the woman up.

  Zahra and Binti went back

  to the village and arrived

  just as their father returned.

  Lily got up and went toward

  the playground.

  “I’m going to climb the dinosaur,”

  she said.

  “He looks like a crocodile.”

  Ben and Jake followed her.

  “I also know a story about kids

  who come to the house of a giant

  who eats people,” said Ben.

  “Does the giant eat them up?”

  asked Jake.

  “I’ll tell the story,” said Ben.

  THE OGRE

  (Hansel and Gretel from Japan)

  There was once a woman

  who had three sons.

  Since her husband died,

  she’d worked hard to feed them,

  but they were often hungry.

  I can’t let my children suffer,

  she thought.

  I will take them to the mountains

  and leave them there.

  If they die of the cold, at least

  it will be faster than starving.

  So, the woman took her sons

  high into the mountains.

  “Wait here,” she told the boys.

  “I’m going to get you some food.”

  Then she left them there

  and returned home.

  The boys waited until dark.

  When their mother didn’t return,

  the two older boys began to cry.

  “Crying won’t do any good,”

  said Kenji, the youngest one.

  “I’ll climb a tree and search for

  a place where we can stay.”

  From high in the tree,

  Kenji saw a light in the distance.