The Roly-Poly Rice Ball

This week has been particularly busy for me. Not that I've been visiting friends and relatives because of Eid. That is far from the reality of things. In fact, this is probably the first Eid I have not done as much visiting as I have always had, and should probably have had twice as much time available for me to use as I deem fit, but that is not the case. I have offered my help to be a parent volunteer at my son's elementary school and have been assigned the role of a Read Naturally Parent. With the training that was conducted and the other things that I have chosen to add to my schedule, obviously believing that I am a supermom, time for me to blog about the food and books in my life has been sorely depleted. Anyway, the training as a Read Naturally Parent was very useful.

So what is a Read Naturally Parent? Thought you'd ask...
It's main aim is to get children reading fluently. And by fluently there are mainly 4 areas that the child needs to be aware of. Let me not get into the details of this and jump right in to say that one very important idea I learnt during the training was that, a child who can read chapter books may not be considered a fluent reader! Why? Because, while he may be able to read fast, he may not be reading with the right inflexions, or comprehension or expression. Now...if you didn't know that, you just learnt something as well!

With my awareness of fluency, and its importance, I charged into the library (of course this is me being melodramatic!) and looked for books that would be helpful for my developing readers. Besides, I thought it was about time to get them a book which would be different from the ones they've been reading recently. The Roly-Poly Rice Ball was the right find.

The story is set in ancient China, gleaned from the colorful illustration of cherry blossom trees, ladies, men and mice dressed in ancient Chinese robes, and tells of a poor sweeper, Li, who had only three rice balls left to last him the whole day. Magically, as he sat under a cherry tree to eat it, the rice balls rolled away into a hole under the tree. Even more magical is his experience as he rolls into the hole as well. The mice who live in the hole eats his rice balls. But Li never gets upset even though he was ravenous. In return, the emperor mice rewards him with precious items which to the mice are of little value.

It is obvious that the story has a moral behind it; that one should share and put others before self and the idea of delayed gratification for being patient. However, I find the story overly unrealistic. It is unrealistic, that Li while in hunger is able to accede to the emperor's demands to do tasks even after he has lost the only meal he has.

Anyway, it is an easy read and one that will encourage the younger readers to enjoy reading because of the repetitive words as well as the sing-song magical chant that the mice uses to make things roll in and out of the hole.

What did we do?

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  discussed how Li felt when he saw the balss rolling away


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  tried to make sense of Li's patience


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  discuss if being a sweeper was a good job or not


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  shared what we would have done if we were Li