The Children's Menu E-Book

Greta Gorsuch

• Herausgeber: Gemma Open Door for Literacy
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 52

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Circletown is a strange place, and everyone knows it. People often get lost on well-traveled roads and familiar streets. Maps are useless. Henry is a kid at Circletown Elementary School. Henry is a little strange. He only eats a few things, like milk and white bread. His life changes when his dad suddenly leaves. Henry's mom, Dr. Berniece Baker, needs to work, and gets Henry a babysitter. But Corey Turnbridge is not just any babysitter. She's a top athlete and she fascinates Henry. Henry tags along to her side job at Jet Café. There, with Maru-sensei, owner of the restaurant, they make The Children's Menu. Henry is about to learn a lot about people…and himself.

Leseprobe

The Children’s Menu

GRETA GORSUCH

Greta Gorsuch taught ESL/EFL and Applied Linguistics for forty years in Japan, Vietnam, and the US. Her research has appeared in academic journals. She is currently coeditor of Reading in a Foreign Language. Her books in the Gemma Open Door series include Newcomers, Post Office on the Tokaido, The Cell Phone Lot, and The Night Telephone. Greta lives in Iowa, where she continues her work for new readers.

First published by Gemma in 2025.

www.gemmamedia.org

©2025 by Greta Gorsuch

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-956476-39-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gorsuch, Greta, author.

Title: The children’s menu / Greta Gorsuch.

Boston : Gemma, 2025. | Series: Gemma open door |

Identifiers: LCCN 2024054792 (print) | LCCN 2024054793 (ebook) | ISBN 9781956476392 (paperback) | ISBN 9781956476408 (epub)

Subjects: LCGFT: High interest-low vocabulary books. | Novels.

Classification: LCC PS3607.O77 C48 2025 (print) | LCC PS3607. O77 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23/eng/20241204

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024054792

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024054793

Cover by Laura Shaw Design

Named after the brightest star in the Northern Crown, Gemma is a nonprofit organization that helps new readers acquire English language literacy skills with relevant, engaging books, eBooks, and audiobooks. Always original, never adapted, these stories introduce adults and young adults to the life-changing power of reading.

Open Door

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter One

Henry was a medium-sized boy. He was like any of the kids at Circletown Elementary School. His class filled the big room in the big building. Thirty of them, boys and girls, all nine and ten years old.

His friend Jake was the first to say something. “Henry,” he said, “What’s going on at your house?” He turned around in his desk to talk to Henry. Mrs. Hambrake was talking to another teacher at the classroom door and did not see.

Henry did have an answer for Jake. But he did not want to talk. Maybe Jake would forget his question.

But Jake was not forgetting. Jake said, “All those boxes and things? That moving truck? Are you leaving?”

“I’m not leaving,” said Henry.

“Oh, OK,” said Jake.

Henry looked down at his book. He was reading a story, sort of. He could not keep his eyes on it. Usually, Henry loved to read. Just not today.

School was a good place for Henry. He knew what happened at school. You had classes. You had math. You had reading. You had geography. Henry and his classmates laughed at the maps in geography class. Everyone knew that maps did not work in Circletown. In fact, Mrs. Hambrake had been thirty minutes late to school every day this week. She kept getting lost. The roads in Circletown went anywhere they liked. They seemed to change overnight. This morning, the police had to find Mrs. Hambrake. She arrived at school in the back of a police car. She was laughing, but she also looked sick.

Sports at school were good, too. But lunch at school was not so good. Henry would not eat much. He might eat a little meat. He would drink the milk. Henry was a very picky eater. No fruit. No vegetables. Nothing that looked or smelled strange. No one at school said anything about what Henry ate or what he did not eat.

Henry knew what happened at school. It was safe.

Until two weeks ago, home was a good place for Henry. Now he did not feel that way. Henry closed his eyes. There was no point in reading the story in front of him. He did not care what Mrs. Hambrake might say.

Chapter Two

Henry told Jake the truth. Henry was not leaving his house. Henry’s dad was gone, though. He had left the house two weeks ago. Half of the things in the house were gone. The sofa and the TV were gone. Henry’s mother, Dr. Berniece Baker, did not say anything about the missing things. She did not say anything about Henry’s dad. But both Henry and his mother had started eating in the kitchen. Their big dining room table was gone. Henry’s dad had taken it.

Before his dad left, home was a lot like school for Henry. He knew how the days would go. On school days, he woke up and smelled his mother’s coffee. He went downstairs and found some milk to drink. He found some white bread to eat. At the dining room table, Dr. Berniece Baker read the newspaper and would say, “Good morning, Henry.” She would not look up. His dad would come in. He would see Henry drinking milk and eating white bread. He would then put more things on the table to eat. “Here. Try this,” his dad would say. It might be strawberry jam or a banana. Sometimes Henry would take a little cheese. Then he would hide it under his plate. Henry’s dad saw this. He would smile.

After a few minutes of chewing on toast or eggs, Henry’s dad might say, “Henry, I think I hear someone at the door. Go look.”

Henry would go look. There would be no one there, of course. Henry would come back to the dining room. “No one there,” he would say.

Henry would sit down and pick up his piece of white bread and eat some. On the bottom of the white bread would be some jam or peanut butter. While Henry was at the door, his dad would put it on Henry’s bread. It was his trick to get Henry to eat more than white bread. Henry and his dad would laugh. Henry did not like jam or peanut butter, but he would eat the bread anyway. It made his dad happy. Henry loved it.