A Letter Soup

Basic Elements

cuento en Espaol

Moral of the story

Good manners help us live together in a pleasant atmosphere

Setting
Any place

Characters
An evil crook and a pair of girls

Story

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The Happy Sweeper The Chain of Smiles The Magic Tree

Once upon a time there was a very evil and unpleasant crook who only ever thought about how to get money. Seeing anyone happy bothered the crook enormously. What he hated most was when people were polite and courteous to each other, saying things like please and thank you, and don't mention it. It annoyed him even more if they were smiling when they said these things.

The crook thought all those kinds of words were a useless waste, and weren't good for anything. So what he did was spend a lot of time inventing a machine which could steal words. With this machine, he planned to steal 'please', 'thank you', 'don't mention it', and similar words people used to be polite. He was convinced that no one would notice if those words were to suddenly disappear. When he had stolen these words, he intended to take them apart and sell the letters to book publishers. After he started up his machine, people would open their mouths, intending to say kind and polite things, but nothing came out. All those words ended up inside the big machine. Just as the crook had hoped, in the beginning nothing happened. It looked like people really didn't need to be polite after all. However, after a while, people started to feel like they were always in a bad mood, doing everything reluctantly, and feeling like everyone else was being forever demanding of them. So, within a few days, everyone was angry and arguing over the slightest little thing. The crook was terribly happy with his success, but he didn't count on a couple of very special little girls. Those girls were deaf, and had to communicate using sign language. Now, because the machine couldn't steal gestures, these girls continued being kind and polite. Soon they realised what had been happening to everyone else, and they found out about the crook and his wicked plan. The girls followed him to his hideout on the top of a hill next to the sea. There they found the enormous machine busy separating all the words into letters. The crook had gone to take a nap, so the girls crept up to the machine and started being polite and courteous to each other. Try as it might, the contraption couldn't steal those words, and it started to suffer a power overload, which got more and more serious as the girls went on communicating. Finally, it exploded, sending all the letters it had gathered flying into the sky. These letters started coming down, like rain, and most ended up in the sea. After that, everyone could be polite and thoughtful again. The anger and the arguments stopped, proving that good manners are very useful for keeping people together in a spirit of happiness. Seeing all those letters fall into the sea gave those two little girls an idea. A little while later they opened a factory. Making alphabetti spaghetti soup!

Author.. Pedro Pablo Sacristn

Billy Peck, Tightrope Waddler

Basic Elements

cuento en Espaol

Moral of the story

True friends always tell us the truth, even if its something we wont enjoy hearing. Those who give us false praise are not worthy of our trust.

Setting Characters
A farm Two ducks and a ram

Story

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Related values stories

Manute the Brave Where did the Voices go? The Wicked Prince

Billy Peck was a farm duck whose big dream was to become a tightrope walker. Every day he spent hours out on the rope, practicing, encouraged by his faithful friend, Artie Quack. Artie was an older duck who, when young, had practiced that very same art. Both of them were a bit flap-footed at it, but they had never let that get in the way of doing all they could to keep training and hopefully improve.

One day, a new ram arrived at the farm. Soon after noticing the ducks' tightrope practice, he came over and began praising them. He said they were doing great, and he bet they could cross any precipice on that rope of theirs. This left Billy feeling highly encouraged, despite Artie commenting that he hadn't noticed any real improvement. A few days later, Billy found himself with the ram, looking across a ravine. The gap was so wide that no one could jump it. You could only cross it using a tightrope. Artie tried to talk his friend out of it. He wanted him to realise that he wasn't such a great tightrope walker, and this thing with the ravine would be really dangerous. The ram disagreed, assuring them that Billy Peck was the best tightrope walker in the whole region, and that Artie Quack was just jealous of him. Both ducks got angry, and Artie refused to help with the tightrope walk. On the ravine, the ram egged Billy on, to reach the other side. But as soon as he had stepped out onto the rope Billy lost his balance, and fell. Fortunately he landed on a small ledge, but when he asked the ram to help him up, he discovered that he had disappeared. Billy Pecks had to spend quite some time there, and even worse, his leg was broken. He realised that his old friend Artie had been telling him the truth all along. He saw that it couldn't have been easy for Artie to tell him that he wasn't a good tightrope walker, and Billy was grateful to have such a good friend who would always tell him the truth... And Artie really was a good friend, because, knowing what was about to happen, he had gone straight off to find a group of wild ducks - old friends of his. These wild ducks flew much better than the poor old farm ducks. Artie prepared a rescue operation with the wild ducks. Billy asked Artie to forgive him, and Artie happily did so. And, while being rescued, and flying high, Billy could see that over on the other side of the ravine there was a load of well-hidden and delicious delicacies. Billy realised that that was all the greedy ram had been interested in. He wanted those foods, but couldn't cross the ravine himself, so had tried to use Billy to get them. Billy felt foolish, but also fortunate, because helped by his new duck friends they managed to gather all that wonderful food, take it to the farm, and have a big party among real friends.

Author.. Pedro Pablo Sacristn

Robot with a Virus

Basic Elements

cuento en Espaol

Moral of the story

Treating things well, with care, is also a sign of respect to those who cannot enjoy such things, and who given the chance would surely treat them well.

Setting

Characters

UA house in A robot and a the future boy

Story

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Related values stories

The Tidy Toys The Happy Sweeper The Careless Clown

Ricky lived in a lovely, futuristic house, which had everything you could ever want. Though he didn't help much around the house, Ricky was still as pleased as punch when his parents bought him the latest model of butler robot. As soon as it arrived, off it went; cooking, cleaning, ironing, and - most importantly - gathering up old clothes from Ricky's bedroom floor, which Ricky didn't like having to walk on. On that first day, when Ricky went to sleep, he had left his

bedroom in a truly disastrous state. When he woke up the next morning, everything was perfectly clean and tidy. In fact, it was actually "too" clean; now Ricky couldn't find his favourite t-shirt, nor his favourite toy. However much he searched, the two items did not reappear, and the same was starting to happen with other things. Ricky cast a suspicious eye on the gleaming butler robot. He hatched a plan to spy on the robot, and began following it around the house. Finally he caught it redhanded, picking up one of Ricky's toys to hide it. Off he went, running to his parents, to tell them that the butler was broken and badly programmed. Ricky asked them to have it changed. But his parents told him absolutely not; it was impossible, they were delighted with the new butler, and it cooked like a dream. So Ricky needed to get some kind of proof; maybe take some hidden photos. He kept on at his parents, about how much good stuff the robot was hiding. This outweighed however good a cook it was, Ricky argued. One day, the robot was whirring past, and heard the boy's complaints. The robot returned with one of the boy's toys, and some clothes for him. "Here, sir. I did not know it was bothering you," said the butler, with its metallic voice. "How could it not, you thief?! You've been nicking my stuff for weeks!" the boy answered, furiously. "The objects were left on the floor. I therefore calculated that you did not like them. I am programmed to collect all that is not wanted, and at night I send it to places other humans can use it. I am a maximum efficiency machine. Were you unaware?" the robot said, with a certain pride. Ricky started feeling ashamed. He had spent all his life treating things as though they were useless. He looked after nothing. Yet it was true that many other people would be delighted to treat those things with all the care in the world. And he understood that the robot was neither broken nor misprogrammed, rather, it had been programmed extremely well! Since then, Ricky decided to become a 'Maximum Efficiency Boy', and he put real care into how he treated his things. He kept them tidy, and made sure he didn't have more than was necessary. And, often, he would buy things, and take them along with his good friend, the robot, to help out those other people who needed them.

Author.. Pedro Pablo Sacristn