Val Biro (1921–2014)

Hard work is its own reward.

A farmer who feels his end is near tells his sons to under no account part with the estate that has been in the family for generations. Somewhere hidden in the land is a buried treasure. Soon the father dies, and his sons set forth, digging up seemingly every piece of their land in search of this treasure.

No gold or such is found, but all this digging around has enriched the dirt, so when the harvest comes in it's better than their neighbors.

So Dad was a tricky show more little ass, but his sons did learn a lesson, and profit from it. show less

When I first heard of this tale, I thought it was Russian in origin since it was called Peter and the Wolf, and set in Russia. There was also an animated film/short of this made in maybe the 80s, it looked old to me when I saw it.

I have since come to learn the story is much older than that, albeit with a few different details. In this version, Peter is not a dumbshit Russian village/farm boy, but a bored shepherd boy who makes up stories about a wolf for attention.

After playing this dumb show more prank several times, no one believes the shepherd boy when he does see a wolf, and the wolf makes off with several sheep when the villagers are brushing off the boy.

The moral of this story is pretty clear regardless of which version you read - if you're known as a liar/prankster, no one will believe you when you do tell the truth. show less

A delightful addition to the Gumdrop series, this one is also very educational.

Fed up with being accused of oldfashioned by his grandson Dan, Josiah Oldcastle (Gumdrop's owner) takes him to a museum to show him something much more old fashioned - a real dinosaur skeleton.

He follows up this visit with a purchase of a computer which, amazingly, converts Gumdrop into a time machine which transports them to the Mesozoic Era where they meet lots of real dinosaurs.. They have great fun learning show more about all the dinosaurs who dub Gumdrop an honorary dinosaur.

As usual with this series, the illustrations are superb. There is also a chart at the beginning giving the comparative sizes of the dinosaurs which will help children to imagine how they would have reacted to the events of the tale. Children aged 6 to 8 years old will especially enjoy this story which is exciting, funny and extremely well told. show less

I chose this for one of my fairy tale books because it is filled with a variety of different ones. I would keep this book in my library because there is a story in there for each student. My favorite story in this book is definitely the ugly duckling. There are so many different stories all combined in one book and I think that it is extremely fun for the students.