SPRING STORY

This online spring story for children describes in a simple way the marvel of the Sun and the stars when the clouds go away, at day or night time.

Let us see the analysis of this brief story for kids and commentary about the characteristics and principal elements of its structure:

1. Spring story

   Because of the content of elements of climate, like the Sun, the clouds, the rain, and the stars, the temporal sequence can be classified into the category of spring stories.

2. Love story

   A common characteristic to all the collection of free short stories for kids in this online book is to contain love stories or tales, even if it isn’t always apparent at first glance. Love is the context or background that gives cohesion to all the stories, its interpretation and its assimilation; it is even a tool, necessary to understand the baddies.

3. Short bedtime story

   The brief or short stories about love or with a happy ending for babies and small children are ideal for bedtime in the form of spoken tales, because they put them in a state of relaxation ideal for a nice rest and an adequate functioning of the childlike brain in that state.

   It would be good to point out that in spoken tales, above all in bedtime stories, even in the very short ones, often the boy or girl fall asleep before the story is finished. They have fallen asleep in a world of fantasy in which they have probably incorporated new elements to the script.

   An important element is that the boys and girls should have the opportunity to choose the spoken tale or bedtime story or, at least, their opinion should always be taken into account.

4. Child bedtime story

   In the stories in English as well as in the short stories in Spanish and other languages, the grammatical structure is very simple and the vocabulary is very basic because of their addressees, limiting themselves to describe very basic aspects or elements.

   Often they are natural elements, like relations between the Sun, the clouds, the rain and the stars.

   Also, the repetition of words in stories reinforces the vocabulary used and the time sequence insists in the idea of the persistence of time like one of the central axes of our life.

   All the stories are educational but in the brief stories for babies (up to 3 years old) this characteristic is always accentuated. In this case, in addition to the cited description, it is interesting to note that in the whole of the tale, the stars are not mentioned even though they are in the title. Notwithstanding, the telling of the passing of the days and how the sky changes will provoke either questions or explanations of what happens when the same circumstances are present and instead of being during the day it is night.

   In other words, the concepts of day, night and stars are also intimately related with this spring story and that is why we chose to include the stars in the title of this bedtime story for babies.

5. Original fairy tale

   Of course every child is a world, but my experience tells me that the most important element is not the technical quality of the personalized or original fairy tale, but the love that it manages to transmit.

   I don’t mean to say that we shouldn’t tell traditional or classic stories for kids, because a lot of them are really great, but that they can be completed with original fairy tales closer to the boys or girls, making them value and ask for one type or another at bedtime with a spoken tale.

6. English fairy tale

   The Sun, the Clouds and the Stars is a English spring story in its original version.

   All tales but two are short stories in Spanish in their original version. In addition, all the brief children stories in this free online book are in Spanish, English and other languages.

THE SUN, THE CLOUDS AND THE STARS

By Caroline Sedgwick

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a country where it was always raining, raining and raining; downpours of rain all day, every day, for years and years and years. And there lived a little boy, in a little house on the mountain, with his Daddy and his dog.

He was nine years old and every day of his life, it had rained and rained, all day and all night.

Can you imagine it always raining and always being wet?

People were always telling him that, before he was born, there had been such a thing as a sun; this was a big, round, yellow thing, which gave warmth and light to everything and everybody and it always had a smile on its big, round, yellow face. And to see that smile on the sun, people would look at it and smile back at it.

The little boy could not seem to picture the idea of a big, round, yellow, smiling face, as he had never seen one. And he couldn't believe that people could look at it and smile, because in his little village, nobody smiled; they all looked sad.

One day, the people began to comment that the skies seemed a little lighter. It was still raining and the black clouds were still there, hanging in the skies, but it did seem lighter.

The following day, people began to comment more, that it seemed to have rained less. The next day, it only rained for half the day. The next, it only drizzled and trickled. The next day, it stopped raining.

The following day, there were white clouds and not black ones. Next, there were bits of blue sky. Until suddenly, there were no clouds at all and a big, round, yellow thing sat heavily in the sky, giving warmth and light to everybody. And the people looked up at this thing and they smiled to see it because it had a big, beaming smile on its face.

 And the little boy sat up in bed and saw a thing he had heard in stories: a big, round, yellow thing up in the sky, with a smile on its face. "That must be the sun!" exclaimed the little boy, smiling back. And he ran into the streets and saw that everyone else was smiling.