Ri-Ra-Lo in Birdieland
by
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Karlow's cricket lesson
Mrs. Morton, Karlow and Rina's class teacher was on a special “leave of absence” and a new teacher, Miss Patrick, was Mrs. Morton's replacement.
Miss Patrick was a very young timid and inexperienced teacher. She was also a bit scared of the very active pupils in her class.
She tried to camouflage her inexperience and anxiety by being a bit strict, which had a negative effect on her “wild pupils”, as she called them.
The pupils thought that her lessons were rather “dry and boring”, so once in awhile someone would do something to “liven up” the class, which naturally made Miss Patrick very cross.
Karlow loved entertainment, so he had a great idea what he could do to bring some “action” into the classroom.
"Crickets!” thought Karlow, “That is it: If I bring some crickets to the class, that would really be a “hit”.
Karlow was so excited he did not sleep well that night. He kept thinking of where he could find the insects and how to smuggle them into the classroom. He was the first to be at school that special morning. As soon as the classroom door was unlocked by the Janitor, he entered and placed the crickets, which had been caught that morning, into Miss Patrick's and a few of his classmate's desks.
His family found it very strange, that he was leaving for school so early: but his excuse was, “I have forgotten my home lesson in the classroom and I want to have it done before school begins”.
Beva smiled, when she heard his explanation and thought, “my son is becoming very dutiful”.
The lesson started surprisingly well, but after about half an hour, the crickets awoke from their long sleep and began to chirp. The chirp! chirp! chirp! was rather loud and disturbing. Whenever Miss Patrick said something, she heard chirp! chirp! chirp! from different parts of the classroom which made everyone laugh. She realised that the sound was also coming from her desk, so she opened a draw to see what was making the noise and the crickets jumped on to her. She sprang backwards knocking over the easel and blackboard.
The whole class “roared” with laughter and the pupils started to jump around trying to catch the insects.
The head teacher heard the “uproar” because his office was near to the classroom. He came running to see what was amiss. As he came along the corridor he met Miss Patrick, who almost knocked him over in her haste to get away. She was screaming, “crickets! crickets! this is too much! this is really too much!”.
The principal restored order to the class, wanted to know what the commotion was about and who the culprit was. Karlow had to admit that he was at fault: for which he was sternly warned. The head teacher also threatened the class with expulsion should something like that take place again.
Karlow had to submit a written apology the next morning, signed by his parents. The head teacher requested a copy of the apology. He had a long discussion with the pupils and at the end they promised to pay more respect to the teacher. He reassured them that he would speak to Miss Patrick in their behalf.
When Raba heard of the incident she and Rina decided to return to their respective classes, so as to prevent any more problems. They also apologised to their teachers and parents for the confusion which they had caused.
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About the Book
Birds, with their beautiful plumage and wonderful songs, are so much a part of nature that without them our world would be “drab”. Is it possible that birds could have dreams, hopes, plans and fears? This story is about the adventures of some red breasted robins which lived in a place called Birdieland. Rina, Raba and Karlow are the three red breasted robins, who meet in the bird school. They look very much alike and everyone thinks that they are all related. They become very good friends and are almost inseparable. Are they all related? Rina and Raba take advantage of their resemblance to confuse their teachers. Karlow causes a tumult in the classroom. Karlow saves Raba from the fangs of Pal, the monster cat. A fly helps Rina to win a song contest. These and many other exiting adventures are packed into this book. Sometimes young readers are confronted with new words: to avoid time loss, the meanings of certain words are indicated. This would also be practical or useful for foreign pupils, who are learning the English language.
About the Author
Yvette V. Riesen-Osborne was born and grew up in Trinidad, West Indies, trained as a nurse in England, during her early twenties, where she met her Swiss husband. As far back as she remembers writing was her favourite pastime. As a teenager, some of her writings included letters for her parents, for her aged grandfather who suffered from “Parkinsons”, job applications for an older cousin and compositions for classmates. She very often wrote letters for her German speaking mother-in-law to her English speaking relatives in the USA, or short stories for her own daughters. Twenty-one years ago she wrote her first Xmas play for her religious knowledge class pupils and one year later the second play followed: both plays where successfully performed. In December 2009 one of her plays “The New King”, was again performed by pupils in three different areas where she works. Her five year old grandson Liam, motivated her to write her first book “Re-Ra-Lo in Birdieland”. He simply loved listening to stories about birds. The other motivation was, three very red breasted robins on a snow covered tree outside of her home, one freezing cold winter morning. The author plans to write successive stories about the three birds. She hopes that her readers, young and “young at heart” would enjoy reading her story as much as she did creating it: that whenever they see a very red breasted robin, smiles of remembrance would brighten their faces. While looking for an illustrator the author saw one of her pupils, Marco Yue, 11 years, sketching his classmate. She was so fascinated with his work that she asked him to illustrate her book. She is so thankful that he found time to work with her. Marco's dream is to become an illustrator, and the book Ri-Ra-Lo is his first attempt.