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Chapter | Supplement | Related book: In the Land of Choice
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INTRODUCTION |
At the beginning of In the Land of Choice, Tammy and Tommy, who are as near alike as any boy
and girl twins can be, were excited about a zoo and baseball game trip planned
by their Aunt Liz and Uncle Fred for the next day. When they wakened to a
downpour, they knew that their great adventure would be cancelled. Disappointed
and out of sorts, they began to argue over chores and games and some paper
cutouts Tammy was making, and Grandma sent them off to their bunk beds. In a
dream-like series of experiences shared by both Tammy and Tommy, the twins were
guided by a strange character through The Land of Choice. Choosy Chicken helped
the twins figure out that they had to make better choices to meet the many challenges
they faced.
At the beginning of this book, The
Magic of Choice, the twins, Tammy and
Tommy, told Grandma about their experiences in The Land of Choice. Fascinated,
Grandma located an old notebook and began to write down what she heard. The
twins weren't sure whether their experiences were real or they had had the same
dream, but, one way or the other, it was clear that they had found out a great
deal about choice-making. When the outing to the zoo finally occurred, they
told Aunt Liz and Uncle Fred about their Land of Choice adventures, and both of
them were as fascinated as Grandma had been.
At one point Aunt Liz mused, "Choices, all day long, and every choice a
chance to do a hundred different things."
"And most of us spend our lives just doing the same things over and
over until we believe we can't do anything else," said Uncle Fred.
As Chapter 3 opened, the twins were surprised to see Uncle Fred and Aunt Liz
drive up to the curb, and Grandma wondered aloud if one of the twins had left
something in their car, then she asked, ". . . or did one of you get in
some kind of trouble I haven't heard about?"
"No, everything is OK," Uncle Fred assured the twins and Grandma
soon after he walked in the door.
"As a matter of fact, we had such a good time, we wanted to get back
together again as soon as possible," said Aunt Liz.
"We thought all that discussion about choices was great," Uncle
Fred said, referring to the ideas the twins had gained from their dream, or
dreamlike experience.
Over pizza and salad Uncle Fred talked about a decision he had made.
"I've not had a vacation in twenty years and I've decided to make a
different kind of choice." He told the twins and Grandma that he and Aunt
Liz were planning to do some wandering over the world and see what there was to
see.
Then came a true surprise for each of the twins. Aunt Liz slipped a narrow
silver ring off her little finger, unclasped the chain Tammy always wore, slid
the ring on the chain and reclasped it around Tammy's neck. Uncle Fred reached
up and removed a fine metal chain he wore which carried a heavier, matching
ring, and placed the chain with the ring around Tommy's neck. But the surprises
didn't end there.
Uncle Fred explained. "My grandma and granddad gave us these rings a
year after we were married. Granddad was a great story teller, and he told us
these were special rings which were ours 'to hold in trust,' he said. He told
us they were giving them to us because we brought magic back into their lives.
He made us promise that when we found two people who brought magic into our
lives we would pass them on. He said we should tell them to pass the magic on
to someone else some day, and just so long as the rings stayed close together
they'd be special for whoever had them."
Aunt Liz continued, "They both said that whatever we really work on
when we wear these rings would turn out well. And, you know, sometimes I do
think they've made a big difference in our lives."
When Grandma worried that Aunt Liz and Uncle Fred would be losing the magic
just when they were planning to go on a long trip, Aunt Liz reassured her.
"That was something I asked about when we were given the rings. Fred's
grandmother's eyes twinkled, and she said, 'So long as the rings are in good
hands, you'll never lose the magic.' Otherwise we wouldn't dare to give them away."
"What a nice story," said Tammy at the time, then once again at
bedtime, as she fingered the ring on its chain.
"I don't suppose they really are magic, though," said Tommy, as he
switched off the light.
The attraction may have been the ring itself or any magic it might possess,
or the thief may simply have wanted to punish Tommy for showing off his skill
in swimming, but the magic seemed to disappear when Tommy's ring was stolen a
few days later.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Before the ring's disappearance, the
twins put the two rings to the test in Chapter 4, which is presented in full
below. Chapter 4 leads to the theme that we can help our relationships if we
really work on them. The Choice Awareness Supplement to Chapter 4 presents that
Big Idea in these words:
We make choices for ourselves and
with others.
4 -- TESTING, TESTING |
The morning after the twins received their rings, Tommy put his finger under
the fine silver chain and slid it around until he could feel the ring. He
clasped it and several inches of the chain in his hand and said to himself,
"I think I'd like bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning for a
change." He waited for several minutes, then he walked out in the hall. He
could hear Grandma in the kitchen, and he could smell her coffee and hear it
brewing, but there was no breakfast smell that suggested bacon and eggs.
He stood where he was for a moment, rubbed the ring until it was warm, and
wished his wish again. Then, just to make sure, he repeated his wish aloud
after he closed the bathroom door behind him. He sniffed deeply when he came
out. No aroma of bacon and eggs. He sighed a deep sigh when he found the usual
cereal boxes on the table. A yellow, ripe banana was beside his bowl, and that
was another food he really loved, but it wasn't what he had wished for.
Tammy wakened as Tommy left the room. She heard the soft chink of the ring
against the T on her chain when she stretched. She reached under the pillow and
felt all around. She sat up in bed, turned her pillow upside down, and shook
it. Before going to sleep she had wished for fifty cents, just to test whether
the ring really was magic. She pulled back the covers on the bed, looked on the
top of the dresser, checked the drawers which belonged to her, and sighed.
A few minutes later, as she ran water in the bathroom sink, she rubbed the
ring, and, once more, she wished quietly for fifty cents. There were lots of
things she could do with fifty cents, but the main thing now was to see if the
ring had any power at all.
"Testing, testing," she said aloud, as she rubbed the ring again,
"I wish for fifty cents." She checked the pockets in her bathrobe,
her jeans, and her shirt. She even turned her shoes upside down. Nothing.
Both Tammy and Tommy ate without saying much. Grandma guessed that both
children were thinking about the night before.
As it often happened, Tommy walked one way to school by way of Carl
Thompson's house, and Tammy walked the shorter way, after Sally called for her.
Tommy left first and, as he turned the corner near Carl's house, which was
nestled among tenements and apartment buildings, there stood Frank Dawson,
hands on hips, waiting for him. Frank was two years older and eight to ten
inches taller than Tommy. For a couple of years Frank had been bullying many of
the younger boys in the neighborhood.
"How about lending me a quarter," was the way Frank usually began,
then he'd bare his teeth in a threatening grin. Many of the boys gave him
money, and no one was ever paid back. It was just a racket.
Carl and Tommy together had stood up to Frank only a few days before. That
had seemed hard enough when there were two of them, but as yet there was no
sign of Carl.
"Oops. I just remembered. After what happened last week, with you and
Carl, a quarter won't be enough. I expect to borrow fifty cents from you today," said Frank.
Tommy's first thought was to do what he had often done before, turn his
pockets inside out to prove he had no money. The only coin he had, a dime, was
safely inside his shoe. But for just a moment he paused, then he reached up and
touched the ring through his shirt. He had no thought of magic right then. It
was just a nervous action.
"I'm tired of all this," he thought to himself. He rubbed the spot
on his shirt where he could feel the ring, then he looked Frank square in the
eye.
"The only money I have on me is a dime inside my shoe, and I have no
intention of lending it to you. Besides
you already owe me and the other kids a small fortune." Tommy gulped, and
he felt weak in the knees, but he added, "Why don't you try that on the
kids in your grade?"
"Now's the time to walk on by," thought Tommy to himself, and he
looked straight ahead and started to pass Frank on the sidewalk. At any moment
he expected to feel Frank's hand on his shoulder and his fist -- anywhere.
"Greetings, you two," called Carl as he rounded the shrubs at the
corner of his house. "I see we have company for our walk to school,"
he said to Tommy.
Carl's tone made Tommy suspect that Carl might have been outside for a
while. Anyway, he knew he hadn't heard the back door bang in the last few
seconds.
"No thanks," said Frank, as he hurried away. "I've got to
catch up with some other kids."
A moment later, when Frank was out of sight, Tommy and Carl laughed.
"I was already outside. I was going to walk your way, when I saw Frank
come up," said Carl. "I thought I'd watch and see what happened. You
really told him."
Tommy smiled. "Thanks," he said, and he rubbed his shirt nervously
and felt the ring inside.
"What's with the rubbing?" Carl asked. "From behind the
bushes where I was, I could see you do that just before you spoke up."
"Oh, I'm just not used to it. Uncle Fred gave me a ring from his
grandfather yesterday," Tommy replied, and he pulled the ring out from
under his shirt, then he tucked it back again as Carl nodded. And he began to
wonder about magic once more.
On the way to school, Tammy and Sally were sauntering along when Sue caught
up with them.
Sally and Sue got along well, and Tammy and Sally got along well, but Sue
and Tammy didn't always get along, especially when all three were together.
Tammy felt like saying. "I was with Sally first, why don't you find
someone else to walk with?" She had tried that before, but sometimes she
ended up alone.
After a few minutes, Sue annoyed Tammy by talking with Sally about a party
that Tammy hadn't attended. She felt left out and hurt. She reached up and
touched the chain around her neck, then she slid her fingers down and felt the
ring. She rubbed it and thought for a moment.
"Hey, you two, I'm feeling left out. Why don't we talk about something
we all know about," she said in a gentle, polite tone of voice.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Sally replied, "I forgot for a moment that
you weren't there." The girls walked on quietly.
Tammy tried to think of something to say. She began to rub the ring
nervously.
"I've got a great idea," she said. "If it's OK with you, Sue,
why don't we go over to your place after school and you play and we'll all
sing." With that, she skipped ahead a couple of steps, then turned and
looked at the other two.
"Months ago, on a dreary winter Saturday," Tammy recalled,
"the three of us had a good time singing together." She wondered for
a moment if it had been jealousy that had caused her to say no when either of
the other girls made the same suggestion since that day.
"Super," said Sue. "I'll check with my Mom, but I'm pretty
sure it will be OK."
"Me, too," said Sally. "It sounds great."
Tammy looped her arms through Sue's and Sally's and smiled as the three
continued walking.
Sally commented when Tammy touched the ring once again, "I see you've
got a new ring on your chain. Anyway, I don't remember seeing it before,"
she said.
"Oh, my Aunt Liz gave me that yesterday. I'm not used to wearing it and
I guess I do fiddle with it all the time," she replied. Then, thinking
about the last few minutes, she wondered if there weren't some magic in it
after all.
That evening Tammy and Tommy discussed the day. Tommy talked about the bacon
and eggs and then his encounter with Frank. Tammy told about the fifty cents
and then she mentioned the choices she had made with Sue and Sally.
"What was it Aunt Liz said?" began Tommy, "Whatever we really
work on will turn out well. Was that it?"
"Yes, that was it," Tammy replied. "And it has worked out
pretty well so far, I guess."
When an advertisement came on television, Tommy turned down the volume and
commented, "I guess the magic -- if there is any -- doesn't work on stuff
like bacon and eggs. But if it helps the things we work on to turn out better,
that'd be plenty."
Tammy had a similar thought later as she brushed her teeth. "I didn't
work on getting the fifty cents, but I did
work on figuring out how the three of us could get along better. And that turned out just fine."
She smiled when she thought about some of the songs the three had sung that
afternoon, and she smiled again when she recalled the compliment she had given
Sue. "I'd give anything to be able to turn pages in a music book and just
play whatever's written there -- like you can."
It was clear from her smile that Sue had really appreciated the compliment.
"That was a good choice I made," Tammy decided.
Supplement
to Chapter Four:
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As with In the Land of Choice, each
STOP-THINK-CHOOSE chapter in The Magic of Choice supplement contains several optional elements
designed to help boys and girls gain in choice-making skills. Supplements may
be used by a parent helping an individual child to build choice-making skills,
or by other adults: teachers, counselors, or other group leaders who work with
children.
In Chapter 4 the materials needed include small pieces of paper for the Positive
Notes Activity and the Choices
Log.
The Pre-Reading Discussion is used as
reminder of the previous Big Idea.
Children may be asked to read from their Choices Logs, and followup of Take-Home Pages (see below) may be shared and discussed.
The Chapter is read aloud, and
suggestions are made for a brief discussion of key elements of the story.
The Big Idea. Suggestions are made
for developing The Big Idea for
the chapter. For this chapter, for example, the discussion suggestions include
saying: I make choices for myself and choices for others. Sometimes the best
thing I can do is STOP, THINK, and CHOOSE my actions carefully, or decide what
I want to say before I say it, like Tommy did with Frank. If I want to get
along with someone better, I need to work on my part of the relationship.
Discussion proceeds toward the development of The Big Idea of this chapter, which is:
We make choices for ourselves and with others.
That idea may be developed through creating a poster and through one or both
of the following activities.
Activity #1: Positive Notes. Each person in the group is given 4 slips of paper.
He or she writes his or her own name in the upper right hand corner on one side
of each of the papers, folds each paper twice so the name shows, and puts the
slips in a box or hat. The papers in the hat are shuffled, then each person
draws out 4 slips and writes positive notes to the four different people named
on them. After the notes are distributed and read, the choices made and the
feelings generated by the experience are discussed.
Activity #2: Choices for
Ourselves. Pairs or small groups are formed
and each group builds two lists. On one list the group writes down things
people could do for themselves,
especially when they are not feeling the greatest; on the other, the group
writes down things people could say
to themselves at the same time. Lists are shared with others, and a combined
list may be made.
Choices Log: Children are given time
to write a sentence, a paragraph, a story, or mini-essay about what they have
learned from the reading, the discussions, and the activities they have
completed.
Take-Home Pages: Take-Home
Page #4, page 133, contains an activity
called Time to Choose in which
children invite a parent, guardian, or other older person to exhange time blocks
in which each makes choices that are agreeable to the other. Examples are
offered, such as vacuuming the car or helping with a book of puzzles. The
partners are encouraged to draw stick figure cartoons of choices they made for
the other person, and children are encouraged to bring their work to the class
or group for discussion.
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This page created and maintained by Dick Nelson. Last update, September 6, 2010