Information Please When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it. Then discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person – her name was “Information Please” and there was nothing she did not know. “Information Please” could supply any body’s number and the correct time. My first personal experie ... read more

The Wet Pants There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It’s never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it.. When the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again as long as he lives. The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, “Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes fro ... read more

Akram was sitting under a tree in the pasture near to the camps. He was counting the stars, which looked like diamonds twinkling in the darkness. Every night, Akram enjoyed making different shapes out of them: As a child, one of his favourite pastimes had been to sit outside at night with his grandfather, where together they enjoyed describing the different shapes that each constellation made. These memories were now the essence of his life, and it was one reason he liked this area of pastureland so much; it provided the perfect gateway to those precious childhood memories. He was a shepher ... read more

The Monkey and the Dolphin One day long ago, some sailors set out to sea in their sailing ship. One of them brought his pet monkey along for the long journey. When they were far out at sea, a terrible storm overturned their ship. Everyone fell into the sea, and the monkey was sure that he would drown. Suddenly a dolphin appeared and picked him up. They soon reached the island and the monkey came down from the dolphin's back. The dolphin asked the monkey, "Do you know this place?" The monkey replied, "Yes, I do. In fact, the king of the island is my best friend. Do you know that I a ... read more

One day, Betty Botter wanted to bake a cake. She bought some cheap butter to bake it. But something was wrong with the butter. “This butter is bitter," said Betty Botter as she tasted the butter. “If I put it in my cake batter, it will make the batter bitter. But if I put a bit of better butter that would make my batter better." So, she went off to buy a better butter than her bitter butter. She mixed a bit of better butter into her cake batter. She tasted the batter and was happy that the batter was not bitter. She adopted the best way to solve the problem. Because there will ... read more