ABC Short Tales

Book excerpt: The book includes delicious short tales. It is ideal to read to children of all ages, encouraging creativity and interest for the things of the world. The book was organized based on the French Alphabet of the early twentieth century, when there were not a letter W. Thus, each tale has as title a reference mnemonic word or a letter. So, being translated from the French, it was not possible to maintain full correspondence between these key words in both languages. For this reason the French version was kept for reference. The tales are: Donkey (Âne), Sheep (Bélier), Duck (Canard), Dragonfly (Demoiselle), Snail (Escargot), Ant (Fourmi), Cake (Gateau), Swallow (Hirondelle), Ibis (Ibis), Toys (Jouets), Kangaroo (Kangourou), Wolf (Loup), Sparrow (Moineau), Snow (Neige), Ear (Oreille), Pea (Pois), Tail (Queue ), Nightingale (Rossignol), Pine (Sapin), Tortuise (Tortue), Universe (Univers), Violets (Violettes), Xavier (Xavier), Yvonne (Yvonne), and Zero (Zéro). The author is Jules Lemaître and texts of Hans Christian Andersen and Florian are also used. The original publication came in 1919 with the name “ABC Petites Contes.”