MONICA THE MOONCHILD - A Victorian children's story about the arrival of a new Brother E-Book

Anon E. Mouse

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

ISSN: 2397-9607 Issue 331In this 331st issue of the Baba Indaba’s Children's Stories series, Baba Indaba narrates the Child’s Tale "MONICA THE MOONCHILD” by Mabel Henriette Spielmann.It is a cold Victorian winter in England. Monica arrives home after a sleigh ride and is told that her mother is expecting and that she is about to become a sister. She is so excited that she battles to find sleep that night. When she does sleep she dreams of a journey to the moon in an old fashioned airship where she meets the Man in the Moon and finds him to be as grumpy as he looks.While there she also meets a fairy who takes her to a garden, in which she allowed to select her new baby brother, or is it a sister?When she awakens in the morning she has a big surprise waiting for her.How did Monica get to the moon and how did she get back? Was the man in the Moon really grumpy, Was the baby she selected the one she found in the nursery in the morning? To find the answers to questions you may have, you will have to download and read this story to find out!Baba Indaba is a fictitious Zulu storyteller who narrates children's stories from around the world. Baba Indaba translates as "Father of Stories".Each issue also has a "WHERE IN THE WORLD - LOOK IT UP" section, where young readers are challenged to look up a place on a map somewhere in the world. The place, town or city is relevant to the story. HINT - use Google maps.33% of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated to charities.INCLUDES LINKS TO DOWNLOAD 8 FREE STORIES 

Leseprobe

MONICA THE MOON CHILD

BY

MABEL HENRIETTE SPIELMANN

A Victorian Adventure

Baba Indaba Children’s Stories

Published By

Abela Publishing, London

2017

MONICA THE MOON CHILD

Typographical arrangement of this edition

©Abela Publishing 2017

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Abela Publishing,

London, United Kingdom

2017

Baba Indaba Children’s Stories

ISSN 2397-9607

Issue 331

Email:

[email protected]

Website:

www.AbelaPublishing.com

An Introduction to Baba Indaba

Baba Indaba, pronounced Baaba Indaaba, lived in Africa a long-long time ago. Indeed, this story was first told by Baba Indaba to the British settlers over 250 years ago in a place on the South East Coast of Africa called Zululand, which is now in a country now called South Africa.

In turn the British settlers wrote these stories down and they were brought back to England on sailing ships. From England they were in turn spread to all corners of the old British Empire, and then to the world.

In olden times the Zulu’s did not have computers, or iPhones, or paper, or even pens and pencils. So, someone was assigned to be the Wenxoxi Indaba (Wensosi Indaaba) – the Storyteller. It was his, or her, job to memorise all the tribe’s history, stories and folklore, which had been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. So, from the time he was a young boy, Baba Indaba had been apprenticed to the tribe’s Wenxoxi Indaba to learn the stories. Every day the Wenxoxi Indaba would narrate the stories and Baba Indaba would have to recite the story back to the Wenxoxi Indaba, word for word. In this manner he learned the stories of the Zulu nation.

In time the Wenxoxi Indaba grew old and when he could no longer see or hear, Baba Indaba became the next in a long line of Wenxoxi Indabas. So fond were the children of him that they continued to call him Baba Indaba – the Father of Stories.

When the British arrived in South Africa, he made it his job to also learn their stories. He did this by going to work at the docks at the Point in Port Natal at a place the Zulu people call Ethekwene (Eh-tek-weh-nee). Here he spoke to many sailors and ships captains. Captains of ships that sailed to the far reaches of the British Empire – Canada, Australia, India, Mauritius, the Caribbean and beyond.

He became so well known that ship’s crew would bring him a story every time they visited Port Natal. If they couldn’t, they would arrange to have someone bring it to him. This way his library of stories grew and grew until he was known far and wide as the keeper of stories – a true Wenxoxi Indaba of the world.

Baba Indaba believes the tale he is about to tell in this little book, and all the others he has learned, are the common property of Umntwana (Children) of every nation in the world - and so they are and have been ever since men and women began telling stories, thousands and thousands of years ago.

Location of KwaZulu-Natal (shaded in red)

Where in the World? Look it Up!

This next story was told to him by a traveller who hailed from the town of Mytchett. Can you find Mytchett on a map? What country is it in?

MONICA THE MOON CHILD

A Victorian Adventure

by

Mabel Henriette Spielmann

A story, a story

Let it come, let it go

A story, a story

From long, long ago!

Umntwana Izwa! Children Listen!

I

THIS SIDE OF THE MOON

It was one of those late afternoons in winter when the countryside looks very white, very still, and hushed to sleep under its coverlet of snow—just the time when the bright fire at home is thought of with delightful longing. The gentleman who drove the phaeton that was bowling along the frosty road must have thought so too, for he cracked his whip so smartly that it sounded loud in the silent landscape, startling the cob to a more hurried remembrance of his snug stable.

"Not very far now, Doctor," he remarked to the friend who sat next to him.

"Home soon, Toodleums," he added, turning towards a big bundle of shawls at the back of the carriage.

"I'm in no hurry, Papa," replied a childish

voice; "I call this lovely!"

"Quite warm, eh?"

"Quite, thank you, Papa."

The bundle, answering to the name of Toodleums, was Monica—her father's constant companion. She was an only child. Her mother had always been delicate, and Monica

was not allowed to be much with her. She even forgot that the invalid at home was ailing rather more than usual to-day, and that their long drive was to fetch her old friend the Doctor for his opinion, for she was listening with so much interest to an explanation which her father was giving of the new airship he had invented. He was still describing his successful trial trip, when Monica noticed that the moon and stars seemed to have The cheery old body was called Grandnurse because she had been in the family for ever so long-so long as to have become, as it were, a member of it.

Passing through the nursery again she stopped and said-

"What would my Poppets say to a little sister, I wonder! A tiny new baby!"

"Oh, Grandnurse!" And before the old woman could hurry out of the door Monica