The Big Day | A Gift from Chapter XXI of Miss Missy’s School

AS SOON AS JOHN turned on the kitchen lights Bebe came bounding through the back door with Tommy at her heels.

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” shouted Bebe.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. John,” shouted Tommy.

“Merry Christmas to you, too!” John smiled and scratched them behind their ears.

“Did Santa come? Did I get a present? Did I? Did I?” Bebe was running around the kitchen table in circles and jumping up and down and chasing her tail and she slipped on the floor and fell right into the table leg!

“Owww,” she said rubbing her head.

“It’s Parliamentary, Sir” | A Gift from Chapter XII of Miss Missy’s School

“WELL, WOULD YOU look at this! Hey John! Come and look at this!” Marica shouted as she opened the door to the shuttered back porch. “Look, John! It’s a meeting of the canine minds— the ca-minds!” she said pointing at the gathering of the Big Dogs— including Tiger the Cat— who were situated among piles of books and other reference materials.

“Recess? Never Heard of It” | A Gift from Chapter XIII of Miss Missy’s School

AS YOU CAN IMAGINE, Bebe was none too keen on the idea of a school. “I don’t want to go to school,” she cried. “School’s no fun! School takes all the fun out of learning. I don’t want to go to school,” she stomped her paw. “Why do we have to have a school anyway? I can learn things on my own. I don’t need a dumb school to learn things. I can count, you know— zero-one-two. I don’t…”

“Zero-One-Two” | A Gift from Chapter X of Miss Missy’s School

“HEY BEBE!” hollered Jordan coming out of the little cottage. “Go get two sticks, girl. We’ll play stick for a few minutes. Go get two sticks!”

“Yea! Yea! Okay! Okay! Two sticks are on the way!” sang Bebe as she ran off to fetch two sticks from under the old oak tree.

“Here’s a stick! Here’s a stick!” she said as she ran off to get another. “Here’s a stick! Here’s a stick!” she said as she dropped another stick at Jordan’s feet and turned to run off again.

A Gift from Miss Missy’s School

Dear Children and Their Grownups,

Two of my people have created a book just for you—readers who long for a story of a different sort. In our tale there are no dragons for heroes to slay, or worlds for wizards to save. It’s simply the story of how my pack and I came to realize we needed a school for all the animals on our farm who wanted to learn and teach from those great books of knowledge passed down to us through… Oh, sorry! Marica says I run on sometimes. Back to our story.

In Fairyland

From the Kid Blog at Miss Missy’s School where Marica talks with kids (and their grownups) about reading and writing…I’d like introduce Andrew Lang (1844-1912), author of In Fairyland. More than anyone, Lang was responsible for making fairy-tales popular with children, and grownups as well, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He’s most famous for a series of 12 Fairy Books which were titled using color names. The first of these was The Blue Fairy Book (1889)…